KOZHIKODE: At a time when the city Corporation is engaged in making the recently launched ‘Clean Kozhikode Campaign’ a success, another major project, of setting up pipe-composting and biogas units on a large scale in its limits, has been dragging for years.
Sources say the project has failed to make any progress since its launch with much fanfare in 2012. The original plan was to set up not less than 29,500 pipe-composting units in the Corporation limits - in two phases, along with 750 biogas plants each and the same number of vermi-composting units.
However, of the total 22,746 applications received for the setting up of pipe-composting units, the civic body has been able to install only around 5,700 units till date, way below the target. The situation is no different when it comes to the implementation of biogas plants and vermi-composting units - with only around 100 biogas plants being set up during that period.
Says UDF councillor P Kishanchandh, “The pipe-composting and biogas project was first proposed in 2012. At that time it was said that the project would be implemented in a year. However, the project got derailed owing to official apathy and that forced the civic body to extend the project twice. Instead of taking up the responsibility for not implementing the project in a time-bound manner, the mayor and others concerned are putting the blame on the officers. They should rather immediately initiate steps to set up units in the households of the applicants who have already paid for them.”
The Corporation had launched the project with an aim to encourage disposal of waste at source of origin, and thus, had hoped to bring down the volume of waste dumped at the Njeliyanparamba trenching ground daily from over 60 tonnes to 20 tonnes. Sources add that although a total of `3.71 crore was allocated with aid from the Suchitwa Mission for the implementation of the projects in 75 divisions of the Corporation, the project got stuck midway following the delay in the release of funds to the agencies entrusted with the project implementation, among other issues.
Meanwhile Health Standing Committee chairperson Janamma Kunjunni says that the issues have been sorted out and that the pipe-composting and biogas plant units will be set up in all the applicants’ households without any further delay. “There were some issues in the timely implementation of the project. They were sorted out and a senior health inspector in the Corporation has now been entrusted with the task of implementing the project. We hope to clear all the pending applications for setting up pipe-composting and biogas plants in the next 3 to 4 months,” she adds.
The project is being implemented by giving subsidy. For setting up pipe-composting units, the civic body will give 90 per cent of the total investment as subsidy. Although the total cost to install a pipe-composting unit is `850, the Corporation will set up the unit at a subsidised rate of `85.
In the case of biogas and vermi-compost plants, the subsidy is 50 per cent of the total cost.