Garbage Yard Going To Be Public Utlity Area
The 36-acre erstwhile garbage yard of the Coimbatore Corporation on the city’s northern border with Kavundampalayam is set for an image makeover.After having stored thousands of tonnes of garbage till 2002, it will have a higher secondary school, a power sub-station, a lawn with a walkers’ track around it, a biomass gasifier crematorium and a burial ground.The Corporation aims to turn it into a public utility area. Mayor R. Venkatachalam said on Tuesday that while the projects for the other facilities had already been mooted, the latest was the proposal to shift the Corporation’s high school from a 12-cent site on K.K. Pudur to the former yard. “The 30-year-old school has 440 students and 13 teachers. Though a high school, it has no playground, laboratory or a library,” the Mayor said. “We plan to allocate five acres for the school at the new site. The institution can then be upgraded to a higher secondary school with at least 1,500 students. It can also be provided with all the facilities it does not have now.”
The Mayor and Corporation Commissioner V.K. Shanmugham inspected the spot where garbage that had accumulated was being disposed of through a landfill. Zone chairmen P. Pynthamil (South), V.P. Selvaraj (West), C. Padmanabhan (North), Leader of the Opposition V.N. Udayakumar, Education Committee Chairman R. Kalyanasundaram, Health Committee Chairman P. Nachimuthu and officials were present.
The school proposal would be made to the Education Committee of the Corporation Council. Once the committee cleared it, the proposal would be placed in the Council for its approval. The Mayor said the Corporation could plan a number of facilities on this site because of shelving the zoo project. The Corporation wanted a much bigger zoological park than what 36 acres could accommodate.
Now, the biomass gasifier would come up on two acres at a cost of Rs.1 crore. The landfill would be done on six acres. This would provide a good green space in the city. It could even have a park for children, apart from the planned walkers’ track. Another two acres would be earmarked for a burial ground for Muslims. The rest of the site would be used to create public utility facilities.
