Coimbatore Corporation will soon start work to rebuild the waste transit station on Sathyamangalam Road in Ganapathy.
According to sources, the Corporation would spend ₹ 3.50 crore on rebuilding the plant. It would utilise money from the ₹ 11 crore the Chief Minister said the State Government would give the Corporation, said sources.
The Corporation had to close down the Ganapathy transit station to facilitate the construction of the Gandhipuram flyover by the Highways Department. At the time of closure, the plant was handling 125 tonnes waste a day.
Following the closure, the Corporation had to divert the waste handled at the station to two other stations and this led to delay in transporting the waste and additional expenditure on fuel. And, rebuilding the plant, whose area was reduced, ran into problems because neither the Corporation nor the waste management contractor could come to a decision on who would fund the construction.
The contractor, Coimbatore Integrated Waste Management Company Pvt. Ltd, had argued that it had invested money on building the plant.
It was for a State Government project that the plant was shut and area reduced. Therefore it was the Corporation’s responsibility to fund the reconstruction.
Now, the Corporation had decided to rebuild the plant to bring it back to use, the sources said.
Of the ₹ 11 crore that the Chief Minister had promised, the Corporation would spend ₹ 4.45 crore for buying 500 bins and five compactors and ₹ 3.25 crore for incinerators.
Sources said the Corporation buying 500 bins would help improve waste collection in a segregated fashion and transport the collected waste to any of the transit stations and from there to Vellalore.
Of the 2,300-odd bins in the city, several were damaged, which affected transportation, the sources explained.
The sources also said that though the Chief Minister had announced ₹ 11 crore for improving waste collection and transportation in the city, the fund was from the Central Government. The Government had sanctioned the funds under the 15th Central Finance Commission grant to be used for improving waste collection in the city.
