Waste management: Mayor to set model at Muttada

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The City Corporation’s plans to implement decentralisation of solid waste management would be piloted at the Mayor’s ward, Muttada, very soon.Mayor K Chandrika, during her previous tenure here as councillor, had proposed a project for decentralisation and got it approved through the ward committee too.With a list of willing residents in hand, Chandrika has decided to set a model in her own ward first.According to the Mayor, she has a list of 200 residents willing to install biowaste plant at their houses.Another 50-plus have shown inclination to the idea of vermicompost and yet another group of 64 residents has favoured ring-compost.The Corporation has proposed a project worth Rs 80 lakh in the Annual Plan for ‘Disposal at the source’ scheme.Under this project, subsidy would be granted to residents for installing biowaste plants by the Corporation.An amount of Rs 3,500 would be granted as subsidy.‘’Other councillors are now willing and coming forward to try it out in their wards.Since I have a proposal and beneficiary list all prepared, we thought Muttada would be the apt place to pilot it.We would hold talks with agencies like ANERT and Bio-tech and would zero in on a partner to help us,’’ said the Mayor.The councillors have been asked to conduct similar interactions in their own wards and convince the residents to try out their own mechanisms for waste disposal.The flats, hotels, hospitals and wedding auditoriums have already been asked to find alternative mechanisms.The flats had come up opposing the move and they have now been given two months’ time.Former Mayor Jayan Babu had, during his tenure, as part of an agricultural project, set up a vermicompost treatment plant at his residence.But the frequent travels that often took him out of the town for days ended in the compost getting rotten and therefore decayed.‘’It is no more at the house, but for those not travelling much, it is indeed a real solution,’’ Jayan Babu said.