The micro compost centre (MCC) inside the banana mundy on Thadagam Road should be operational by now, if one goes by the commitment the Coimbatore Corporation made in January this year to the State Level Monitoring Committee of the National Green Tribunal for Solid Waste Management in Tamil Nadu. But it is not.
The MCC has nothing more than a few brick tanks built on the ground and a metal sheet for roof. Given the absence of any development for almost a fortnight, the MCC has turned to a favourite place for tipplers, as empty liquor bottles and banned plastic tumblers occupy a part of the premises.
Many among the 12 MCCs that the Corporation told the Committee were functioning were not functional for various reasons, said Corporation sources familiar with the development.
In a few of the MCCs, the construction was incomplete; in a few others the Corporation was yet to take power connection and in others the Corporation was yet to install machinery to start processing the waste, they added.
The Corporation had told the Committee in January that it had put into use 12 MCCs and completed work in 23 to take the total operational MCCs to 35 by March 31 this year.
The Corporation also promised to show progress in another 34 in due course.
The Corporation had planned to build 69 MCCs for around ₹ 7 crore to decentralise waste collection and process. The idea was to transport waste from houses and small commercial establishments in every locality in the city to the nearest MCC.
The Corporation had conceived of the MCC idea in 2018 and started construction in 2019. But as of March this year, it had completed construction in only a few centres, the sources said.
The officials said one of the reasons for the Corporation’s failure to go ahead with the construction in places where it had started work was opposition from people in the vicinity to the site chosen for the MCCs.
And, the second reason was that the delay by the Corporation in constructing MCCs in those places where it did not see protest and using those as show-pieces to convince opposing residents to start constructing more.
The sources pointed out that further delay would only mean that the Corporation would continue to spend more to transport waste all the way to the Vellalore dump yard and ill use the small goods carriers it bought recently to take waste to the MCCs.
The Corporation officials said they had asked the contractors to complete construction at the earliest in those MCCs where they had started work.
