Residents firm on demand for shifting garbage yard

Residents of over 20 layouts in Kurichi Municipality and Vellalore Town Panchayat are firm that the Coimbatore Corporation should shift its garbage disposal yard from Vellalore.The Kurichi-Vellalore Pollution Prevention Action Committee that they had formed four years ago to press this demand feels that even the proposed Rs.96.50-crore Integrated Solid Waste Management scheme of the Corporation will not bring about a solution in the near future.As much as 560 tonnes of garbage is dumped in the yard every day and it accumulates in the absence of a disposal scheme.

Residents have been suffering the smoke from burning dumps and invasion of their homes by flies that feast on the rotting waste.They complain of unending cases of diarrhoea, respiratory and eye ailments because of these problems.Corporation officials admit that the problems are serious but assure the people that the new scheme will provide a permanent solution as biodegradable waste will be converted into manure and the non-biodegradable waste will be buried. In short, no garbage will remain in original form for too long and to the discomfort of the people in the layouts around the yard.

The committee is not willing to buy this assurance and insists that no waste management should be carried out at this yard. “There are places inside the city for this. But, the Corporation does not admit it,” says secretary K.S. Mohan. The committee has even complained to Collector Neeraj Mittal that the Corporation has misled it by claiming that the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board has disallowed waste disposal within the city.“We sought information from the board under the Right to Information Act on whether the Corporation had approached it with any proposal for operations within the city. The board has replied that no such proposal had been made. It will study possibilities of such an arrangement if a proposal is submitted,” says Mr. Mohan.

A petition accusing the civic body of misleading the committee has been submitted to the Collector, along with the copies of the letter seeking information under the Act and the board’s reply.Mr. Mohan says that the committee has decided to sit for another presentation on the waste management project by the Corporation.It walked out of a presentation last month by declaring that it was not prepared for any measure other than the shifting of the yard.“The Collector wants us to attend another presentation. He regretted that we had walked out of the earlier one that he had arranged for. So, we may have it later this week. The Collector has asked us to first see what the benefits of the scheme are before rushing into any decision,” Mr. Mohan says.

But, officials also say that for a year since the start of the project the residents may have to endure some problems, Mr. Mohan claimed. “We therefore feel that disposal operations within the city will be better. The Corporation should do it on its own territory and this will save the Corporation the cost of transporting waste to a yard that is 10 km into the suburbs,” he says.The civic body has sites at Ukkadam, Peelamedu, Seeranaickenpalayam and many other places for waste disposal, Mr. Mohan argues to drive home the point that the Corporation need not look for space under other local bodies.

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