Even as the Corporation is nearing the deadline to clear legacy waste in Vellalore under the Coimbatore Smart City Mission, the Southern Bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) recently directed the civic body to present the details of the machinery that need to be used and regarding permanent solution to handle the legacy and daily waste. The tribunal said the matter must be posted in the next hearing on July 4.
The NGT Southern Zone, comprising Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana and expert member Satyagopal Korlapati, said if the legacy waste is not processed on a war-footing before the onset of the monsoon, the condition may worsen.
The tribunal also asked the Corporation to look into the feasibility of coordinating with the industries in Coimbatore or formulating any remedial action to clear the legacy waste and to arrive at a permanent solution for the daily waste.
The deadline for completing the projects under the mission is June 2023, the Centre had announced last December.
Secretary of the Kurichi-Vellalore Pollution Prevention Action Committee K.S. Mohan filed an affidavit before the NGT on April 26, citing The Hindu’s report (‘Coimbatore Corporation handing over unsegregated waste’).
“Plant capacity of the waste processing company in the yard is nowhere near the actual amount of waste dumped every day there.. It was already pointed out that only 20% of the waste was segregated and processed daily and the remaining piled up along with the old waste. The Corporation must remediate this and identify sites locally for managing waste generated in each zone or ward,” Mr. Mohan said in the affidavit.
Reply
Corporation Commissioner M. Prathap, in his reply to the NGT, said based on the records, the waste generation within the civic body limits is 1,450 tonnes per day (TPD), of which 1,100 TPD (75%) is collected and processed. Roughly 350-400 metric tonnes (MT) of untreated wastes were being dumped in open ground daily without processing.
In Vellalore, the 600-tonne capacity windrow composting plant processes 440 MT - 550 MT waste and the vermicompost plant 100 tonnes daily. Further, the 34 micro composting centres, six material recovery facilities and the DWC, with a cumulative capacity for treating 185 TPD, process 126 TPD, Mr. Prathap said.
Following the reply, the NGT, on April 26, observed, “it is stated [in the Commissioner’s reply] that the contractor who was entrusted with the work of bio-mining could not complete the work within the time granted as 55% of the volume of legacy waste is above the ground level and the rest below the ground level.”
The green body ordered the Corporation to submit in the next hearing whether any latest machines for segregating the legacy waste could be hired and specify the deadline by which this can be done.
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