From Wednesday, about 60 tonnes of municipal solid waste will be transported to zero waste management (ZWM) sites set up at nine places across the city.
S.A. Ramdas, Minister in-charge of Mysore district, said on Tuesday that five ZWM sites were ready for operations and the remaining sites would be readied temporarily so that at least five tonnes of waste could be transported to each of them.
This comes in the backdrop of piling up of garbage at Sewage Farm in Vidyaranyapuram here, posing a health hazard to people living in the surrounding localities. Nearly 200 tonnes of solid waste is treated at Sewage Farm a day to produce compost. However, nearly 250-300 tonnes of waste is generated in the city and tonnes of untreated garbage had been lying at the farm for the past few days.
When residents of nearby localities such as J.P. Nagar, Vishveshwara Nagar, and Vidyaranyapuram complained about the foul smell, the Minister inspected the yard along with Mysore City Corporation Commissioner M.R. Ravi and officials.
The Minister criticised the officials for the state of affairs at the plant and their lack of efforts to contain the stinking smell spreading from the rotting waste.
Mr. Ramdas told presspersons that the residents had been complaining about the foul smell from the dump yard for the past 15 days as animal waste had been dumped there in violation of norms.
“There is a landfill yard for dumping animal waste. But the trucks transporting solid waste dumped animal waste there,” he alleged. He said the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board had issued a notice to the MCC in this connection.
The Minister warned of filing criminal cases against those dumping animal waste at the solid waste dump yard and said he had asked the MCC to identify persons responsible for the act and suspend them pending inquiry.
Mr. Ramdas said the MCC authorities had been told to transport at least 60 tonnes of solid waste to nine ZWM sites to reduce the garbage load at the sewage farm. The ZWM sites had been set up at Kesare, J.P. Nagar, Bannimantap, Kumbarhalli and other places.
Focus had been laid on decentralisation of solid waste management by setting up more ZWM sites in wards and localities. “There are plans to set up six more zero waste management cells,” he said.
He said there was sufficient manpower to manage the ZWM sites. The existing manpower had not been used properly for the last one year, he said.
The Minister said solid waste dumped in about five acres at the Sewage Farm had been capped to prevent open exposure of waste and capping in the remaining 2.5 acres would be done soon. Also, the authorities had been asked to take up chemical spraying on the waste to reduce the smell.
Mr. Ramdas said he would visit the plant again on November 19 to take stock of the situation and examine whether the directions issued by him had been complied with.
