BHUBANESWAR: Indiscriminate dumping aside, waste collection in the State Capital has been hit as transport of trash from the temporary transit station near Sainik School to Bhuasuni dump yard - the designated place for transferring of City’s solid waste - has remained paralysed for over a fortnight, thanks to protest of villagers in Daruthenga.
Villagers are not allowing the corporation to shift garbage to the dump yard and seek immediate bio-mining of the waste at the site located in their area. The civic body, however, wants a year’s time. “The garbage transfer cannot be stopped at one go. It will be stopped once all the ward-level micro composting centres (MCCs) are made functional. We need at least 10 to 12 months time for that,” said a senior official from BMC.
With BMC failing to clear waste from TTS, the entire station is now a massive pile of waste, creating an unhygienic and unhealthy atmosphere in Sainik School and VSS Nagar locality. Vehicles carrying garbage to the TTS are also facing problems in unloading trash at the station due to a lack of space. This has affected waste collection across the city.
Though BMC convened a meeting with villagers to resolve the issue last week, sources said it remained inconclusive. Civic officials said the issue will turn acute if the villagers do not cooperate. “Efforts are on to seek support from the local community of Daruthenga in this regard,” said BMC Commissioner Vijay Amruta Kulange.
Meanwhile, the protest also delayed the bio-mining project which the civic body planned to start at an investment of `103 crore to clear over a million-tonne waste lying dumped at the site for over a decade.
“The bio-mining plant has already been set up and ready for operation. We are hopeful that the villagers will allow it without blocking the civic body from transferring waste to the site,” Kulange said.