The Hindu            09.11.2013

Waste management remains major issue for corporation

Scientific management of the 190 tonnes of solid waste
generated in Gulbarga and its recycling continues to be a major
insurmountable problem for the Gulbarga City Corporation.

With
its proposal of outsourcing the recycling of solid waste to a
Mumbai-based company still pending with the State government for the
past nine months, the city corporation has now come out with an
alternative project.

The earlier project pending with
the government since February this year involved no financial
commitment from the city corporation as the Mumbai-based company was
supposed to invest Rs. 16 crore and take the returns for a period of 25
years. Now, the city corporation proposes to invest Rs. 50 lakh on
setting up four segregating units in the dumping site and recycle the
solid waste. The Mumbai-based company is involved in similar jobs in
Pune in Maharashtra and Rajkot in Gujarat. Recently, the Bruhat
Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has also awarded the work of
recycling 300 tonnes of solid waste a day to the same company, which has
incidentally been done months after the Gulbarga City Corporation
submitted its proposal to hand over the task to the same company for
government’s approval.

Apart from mounting pressure
on the Udnur dumping site with the solid waste generated every day
adding up to the huge mound of garbage and waste without being recycled
or segregated, the unauthorised dumping of solid waste in the open
fields and on either side of the roads on city outskirts by contractors
entrusted with the responsibility of transporting solid waste, has
become another problem for the city corporation now. In addition, the
dumping of non-edible parts of slaughtered cattle, goats and sheep by
illegal slaughterhouses in unauthorised dumping sites is causing a
serious health hazard to the people. Residents of Hagarga, a village on
the outskirts of the city, had raised a ruckus in the city recently by
blocking vehicular traffic on the ring road for more than an hour, in
protest against unauthorised dumping of waste on the Hagarga Road.

The
entire four kilometre stretch commencing from the city outskirts to
Hagarga has been filled with solid waste and non-edible parts of
slaughtered animals, causing serious health hazard to the residents of
the village and surrounding places.

Environmental Engineer and Health Officer in city corporation Abhay Kumar told
The Hindu
that the city corporation was initiating measures to end the menace of
unauthorised dumping of solid waste on the city outskirts by setting up a
weighbridge with Closed Circuit TV cameras at the entrance of the
dumping site at Udnur to keep a tab on the movement of all vehicles
assigned with the task of transporting solid waste.

The
computers installed in the weighbridge would automatically record the
entry of vehicles and their registration numbers, which would be the
basis for settlement of bills by transporters.