Coimbatore Corporation’s vermin compost plant does not function, its bio-methanation plant too does not function and its dumping waste without authorisation, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) has said.
After inspecting the corporation’s 650-acre Vellalore dump yard in July, TNPCB found that the 100-tonne vermin compost plant was not functioning. The corporation had also established the plant without its authorisation.
The two 1.25 tonne bio-methantion plant too was not under operation during the time of inspection and that too did not have its authorisation, the TNPCB said.
These details came to light when MDMK’s State youth wing secretary V. Eswaran accessed the report under the Right To Information Act. The corporation has denied the TNPCB’s findings, though.
The TNPCB has said that the leachate treatment plant on the Coimbatore Integrated Solid Waste Management Limited’s premises was also not functioning and that the company that handled the waste on behalf of the Corporation had failed to renew its license.
Further, the pollution monitoring agency also found fault with the civic body for dumping waste above the area where it had capped waste - an area spread over 24 acre.
Referring to the TNPCB’s report, Mr. Eswaran has asked the Southern Bench of the National Green Tribunal to appoint a committee involving not just the corporation and TNPCB experts but also academics, waste management experts and members of the public to monitor the disposal of waste and day to day functioning in Vellalore.
The TNPCB’s Coimbatore office’s letter had nailed the corporation’s claims that it processed 100 tonnes waste a day at the vermin compost plant. If the plant was not functioning, it only meant that the corporation was again dumping the waste.
Corporation officials rubbished the pollution body’s findings saying they were “baseless and unfounded.” Of the 1,000-odd tonnes waste generated a day, the corporation was unable to process only 390 tonnes a day and that it was dumping in the open.
They added that the plant remaining idle at the time of inspection did not mean they were dysfunctional.
