The Hindu 01.04.2013
Municipality steps up efforts to make Alappuzha litter-free
The Alappuzha Municipality has stepped up its efforts to reach its goal of making the town waste-free by February 2014.
Posters
asking the public to determine whether their area will be fit for
declaring as ‘clean ward’ has been placed across the municipality as
part of the conclusion of the first phase of the project, ‘Nirmala
Bhavanam, Nirmala Nagaram’.
The public can make sure
that their ward is waste-free by fulfilling these conditions. They are:
a) the ward should have 100 biogas plants, 300 pipe compost and four
aerobic compost bins b) It should processes bio-degradable waste at its
source itself and hand over non-degradable waste including plastic by
separating them; c) the streets in the ward should be free of waste. If
these conditions are met, the ward will be declared as waste-free by
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy here on April 23, Alappuzha MLA T.M.Thomas
Isaac said.
The campaign
Twelve
wards have been listed in this regard, the MLA said. Cultural
programmes highlighting the issue will be held in these 12 wards from
April 10 to 21. These programmes will be of one hour duration and will
be staged from in the evening at three centres in each ward on a single
day. The general cleaning campaign will be conducted in April and
declaration of the clean wards will be held at 4 p.m. on April 23.
Alappuzha
municipality will not grant license to hotels, home stays and
restaurants which do not set up bio-gas plant or other waste processing
methods. If there is no space available for setting up biogas plant they
could be set up on the compound of the hotel owner. “The municipality
will seal such hotels if the conditions are not met”, said Alappuzha
municipality chairperson, Mercy Diana Macido. She said that hotels have
been given enough time to set up the plants.
The MLA
said that the Alappuzha model of decentralised waste processing has been
replicated in other towns and cities, where they bid goodbye to
centralised waste processing plants.
The district court ward has shown great commitment in going ahead with the waste processing programmes, he added.
