The city Corporation may finally have found the breakthrough in solid waste management that it has been desperately seeking. It comes in the form of an innocuous piece of paper – a circular dated July 2008.
The circular was brought to light by Corporation health standing committee chairperson S. Pushpalatha during Friday’s council meeting.
According to this order, local self-governments are allowed to set up vermicomposting plants with a maximum capacity of one tonne, windrow-composting plants of capacity up to three tonnes, and biogas plants of up to one-tonne capacity. The civic bodies do not require the technical sanction of the Suchitwa Mission to install these decentralised systems. The circular stipulates a greatly simplified process that only requires a Technical Advisory Group (that could be formed within the Corporation’s structure itself) to evaluate and grant the technical sanction, along with a go-ahead from the District Pollution Control Board.
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This is significant as one of the Corporation’s most ambitious decentralised waste management schemes involving the setting up of 62 high-capacity plants can be implemented without further delay.
All the plants envisaged under this programme do not exceed the one-tonne capacity limit.
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Based on the circular, the engineering wing can proceed with the project by entrusting accredited agencies with the responsibility, it was decided during the meeting.
Ms. Pushpalatha highlighted the nearly year-long delay caused by paperwork between the Urban Affairs Ministry, the Suchitwa Mission, and the Corporation.
Mayor K. Chandrika had to hastily conclude the meeting soon afterward as a heated debate broke out between councillors of the ruling front and the opposition United Democratic Front regarding the merits of Shashi Tharoor, candidate in Thiruvananthapuram for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.