VIJAYAWADA: As part of its efforts to improve solid waste management (SWM) practises, Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) will establish garbage transfer stations (GTS) in five parts of the city at an estimated cost of Rs 15.4 crore. The civic body has expedited the project through balance grants from the 15th Finance Commission. Disclosing the project details, VMC Commissioner V Prasanna Venkatesh told TNIE that the civic body has already introduced 25 CNG auto-rickshaws to collect the wet and dry wastes separately generated from the households in the city.
After segregating the wastes from the households, the vehicles will reach the GTS to be established at HB Colony, Jakkampudi, Auto Nagar, Ramalingeswara Nagar, Singh Nagar/ Vambay Colony. The GTS will be a closed structure with a high roof and the surroundings will be developed with greenery, he said. Elaborating further, the civic body chief said that an elevated platform will be arranged inside the station and once the CNG vehicle enters the elevated platform and the other side of the vehicle will have the compactor capsule fixed to it having a compression system in it.
Soon after the vehicle dumps the wet and dry wastes separately through a hopper into the compactor capsule with 20 cubic metres capacity, wet wastes will be sent for processing and the dry wastes in another chamber. In the next step, wastes will be squeezed and compacted in the hopper and after it gets full it will be shifted into a separate vehicle. Either the waste will be shifted to the Pathpadu dumping yard or waste-to-energy plant at Naidupeta in Guntur district, he said. The civic body chief explained that waste is not dumped indiscriminately in the station while executing the process.
“Our concept is to make Vijayawada a bin free city, for these dumper bins to be removed, it may take at least a few months to materialise the concept in full fledged manner across the city. At present, the garbage segregated from the households is shifted to the loader points and then shifted to the dumping yard. Once the project materialises it reduces time for collecting wastes from households and energy as the CNG vehicles will dump the wastes nearby GTS instead of travelling to the dumping yard,” Venkatesh said.