Waste management: Expert team to be formed

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The City Corporation will form a 30-member expert team which will visit all the 100 wards to help with the decentralisation of solid waste management being planned as an alternative to the centralised project in Vilappilsala. It is also set to strengthen its Technical Committee for Vilappilsala solid waste management project headed by R V G Menon, a meeting of which is scheduled for Friday. The Corporation has submitted a proposal for decentralisation of solid waste management at the  ward-level to the District Planning Committee by including it in the Annual Plan for 2011-12. It is to reduce the volume of waste transported to Vilappilsala that the scheme has been envisaged by setting aside Rs 80 lakh. The Corporation Council that met here on Thursday has asked the State Government to give permission to use an additional amount of Rs 5 crore from the KSUDP project. Once it gets approved, the Corporation would require the assistance of volunteers and NGOs engaged in solid waste management to carry the message to wards. The Health Inspectors would not be able to handle the responsibility alone as it would also require knowledge about the new options, including ring-compost, vermicompost and bio-waste treatment.  ‘’We are planning a door-to-door campaign to tell people that these are the options before them. Garbage should be considered an asset and not a waste. It could be transformed to organic manure and re-used. The faculty team would visit all 100 wards and work with councillors to hold meetings and organise ward sanitation committees,’’ Pushpalatha said in the Council meeting. A detailed time table for the Corporation-level ‘Suchitwolsavam’ was also circulated in the Council. The cleaning programme will kick off on October 2 and will continue till November 4. The programme aims to clean up government offices, shops, hotels, schools, institutions, parks, tourist centres and other places.  The Council also approved the first instalment of Rs 4 lakh to be handed over to the Centre for Environment and Development (CED) to install the PVC tank to collect the leachate at Vilappilsala waste treatment plant. The Suchitwa Mission, in its report to the government, had suggested the setting up of tanks to collect the leachate, instead of allowing it to flow to the artificial pond created for the purpose.  Meanwhile, BJP leader P Asok Kumar said that the six wards belonging to BJP councillors have already started moving towards a decentralised waste management system. ‘’In three months’ time, our wards would be able to stop sending a single bit of waste to Vilappilsala,’’ he said in the Council.