As part of the pipe compost scheme implemented by the Kozhikode Corporation, pipes were distributed to 140 houses of the Souhruda Residents Association last week. However, this seems to be an isolated case as residents who have paid for it have started coming forward with complaints as the Corporation has failed to distribute pipes. The scheme was introduced as an alternative to the waste disposal system in the city, which solely depends on Kudumbashree workers. Councillor Poolakkal Sreekumaran says the whole scheme is a huge failure. “One hundred and twenty pipe compost units were provided to my ward; only 110 people had paid for it. However, only 17 of them have been fixed till now. It was inaugurated last month by our health standing committee chairperson with a lot of fanfare. The residents of my ward are now questioning me as to why the rest of them are not being fixed. The situation is similar in most of the wards,” he says. V S Achutha Lal, general secretary, Democratic C o n s u m e r W e l f a r e Organisation, says, “The authorities are distributing these pipes for inauguration sake. On the inaugural day we see them fixing one or two of these pipes, after which no one knows what is to be done with them. We have found that many houses have not fixed the pipes. A lot of residents have approached the organization with complaints. What is missing here is proper awareness. The Corporation should start a monitoring system to ensure whether the houses have fixed these pipes or not.” On enquiring about the delay, Kozhikode Corporation secretary B K Balraj says, “A review meeting was held recently and it was found that there was a slight delay in the implementation of the scheme.” Corporation Mayor A K Premajam says, “The issue is not delay in implementation; the scheme is yet to start in certain regions. That is the main problem.” Madhavan, Health Supervisor, Kozhikode Corporation, says, “The distribution of pipes has been assigned to two government- approved agencies, that is the Integrated Rural Technology Centre and the Socio Economic Unit Foundation. After receiving complaints from various ward councillors, a meeting was held with these agencies a few days ago. They stated they had shortage of funds which led to the delay. However, we have asked them to apply to avail of more funds.” A highly placed official at the Integrated Rural Technology Centre clarified that the blame for the delay in implementation cannot be fixed completely on the agency, “The agreement we initially had was that the agency will get 50 per cent from the project’s profit. However, we were asked to bring it down to 20 per cent. Therefore, instead of getting an amount close to Rs 55 lakh, we only got somewhere around Rs 8.41 lakh. We have already installed 600 pipes and distributed 900 pipes. We are running on a huge loss since the pipes we distribute are of BIS standard. Two weeks ago, we wrote to the Corporation and stated that we need 50 per cent of the profit. As of now they have agreed to it.” He also says that there was a delay in submission of the beneficiaries list as well. “We got the beneficiaries list by the first week of August only, that too after we approached them for it.” Bharadwaj O M, councillor of Thiruthiyad, points out, “The implementation of the scheme is successful to an extend. We have to wait and watch to see how effective it is. The waste needs time to be turned into compost, which will take a while. What the Corporation needs to do is to give proper guidelines and give the people proper awareness about how this should be used and maintained. People should be ready to maintain these compost pipes. Once the implementation is complete, the Corporation should introduce a monitoring system as well.” According to the Corporation officials, nearly 29,500, pipe-composting units will be installed within the Corporation limits in two phases, with 400 units for each ward. Two-thousand five hundred biogas plants and 2,500 vermi-composting units are also set to be installed.