CHENNAI: The DMK on Friday did a U-turn on the proposed waste-to-energy (WTE) plant at Kodungaiyur, with deputy mayor M Magesh Kumaar saying the party would oppose the project if residents were against it, after having strongly backed its implementation while in government.
The Rs 2,100-MT-per-day WTE project was announced in the state Budget last year under the previous DMK regime. When similar environmental and health concerns were raised then, Mayor R Priya and Magesh Kumaar had defended the project and maintained that it would be implemented.
However, responding to concerns raised during the council meeting, Magesh Kumaar said, “If the public are opposing it, the DMK will also oppose the plant.”
The party also backed several demands of sanitary workers, another issue on which its position came under scrutiny after the change in government. DMK councillor S Velu urged the TVK government to accept the workers’ demand for job regularisation and questioned restrictions on their protest at Ripon Building, saying workers had been allowed to protest there during the DMK regime.
However, sanitary workers protesting against outsourcing and demanding regularisation at Ripon Building from August 1 to 13 had been detained around midnight during the previous government’s tenure.
Magesh Kumaar also urged the government to consider demands including a food allowance instead of meals, maternity benefits and rest spaces in every ward.
Earlier, MDMK councillor S Jeevan sought reconsideration of the Kodungaiyur WTE project, citing environmental and health concerns. He pointed out that a smaller 50-MT incineration facility at Kodungaiyur, commissioned in 2021, was shut in February 2026 after an RTI response obtained by activists showed that 45 of 48 prescribed environmental parameters had not been met.
He also referred to a councillors’ visit to a WTE plant in Hyderabad, where, he said, ash was found settling around the facility and residents had raised health concerns. “We are not against scientific handling of solid waste, but it should not affect the public. The decision must be reconsidered,” he said.