Garbage, which was once Kochi’s bane, has set the cash boxes ringing for the Kochi Corporation.
The city administration is all set to earn money by processing waste from the neighbouring municipalities. The Corporation Council had recently cleared a request from the Thrikkakara municipality for processing the refuses from there. Following Thrikkakara, Aluva, Eloor and Kalamassery municipalities have approached the Kochi Corporation for processing the municipal waste that the Brahmapuram solid waste management plant of the civic body, said T.K. Ashraf, chairman of the Health Standing Committee of the Kochi Corporation.
It would require the clearance of the Corporation Council for processing the waste from neighbouring local bodies. As the Council had earlier given the green signal for the request from Thrikkakara, it may consider other requests favourably. A decision on the requests is expected to be taken next month, he said.
The Thrikkakara municipality will pay Rs. 552 a tonne to the Kochi Corporation as processing fee. It will be brining around five tonnes of waste a day for processing. However, the rate fixed for Thrikkakara may not be applicable to others. Thrikkakara was allowed a concession in processing fee as the Kochi Corporation had been using their roads for the transport of waste. The Council is of the view that local bodies should be charged Rs. 1000 a tonne for processing at Brahmapuram, explained Mr. Ashraf.
Segregated waste
The Kochi Corporation will insist that the local bodies should send only segregated waste to its plant site for processing. The two health officials of the Corporation posted at the plant site would inspect the lorries bringing the refuses to the plant for processing. Only vehicles bringing in segregated would be let in, he said.
The festival days have increased the workload of those at Brahmapuram. On an average, around 25 tonne food waste is being been added to the regular quantity these days, taking the total of waste reaching the plant site to 175 tonnes, said A.A. Baiju of Waste Environ Green, the agency which is running the plant for the Kochi Corporation. The inclement weather Kochi had been experiencing during the past weeks has slowed down the processing at the plant. Waste was dampened by the water that seeped into the floor of the plant delaying the treating of waste. Around 85 per cent of the accumulated waste has been processed. The poorly segregated waste has also been delaying the processing. Additional hands have been deployed for segregating the waste at the plant, Mr. Baiju said.
