User fee for waste management not to be hiked, says Mayor
The Hindu
The Kochi Corporation has dropped the idea of setting up a windrow plant at Brahmapuram as the BPCL Kochi Refinery has come forward for setting up a Compressed BioGas (CBG) plant there.
The user fee collected from city residents for processing biodegradable waste will not be increased from June 1 when private players take up the responsibility of waste management in the city, Mayor M. Anilkumar has said.
Speaking at the Kochi Corporation council meeting on Monday, Mr. Anilkumar said the decision would burn the pockets of the civic body. However, the additional burden would be shouldered by the Corporation itself and the residents would be insulated from the impact of the fee hike, he said.
Members of the Haritha Karma Sena, who will collect the biodegradable waste from households, will hand over the refuse to private agencies. The private agencies will be hand-picked from the shortlist prepared by the Suchitwa Mission.
The civic body has dropped the idea of setting up a windrow plant at Brahmapuram as the BPCL Kochi Refinery has come forward for setting up a Compressed BioGas (CBG) plant there. The CBG plant may become operational in one year. The Corporation may have to seek the service of private agencies till the CBG plant becomes operational. The State government had given the go ahead for the plant, he informed the council.
Mr Anilkumar informed the council that bulk producers of waste should set up their own facilities for processing refuse. The civic body will not be able to provide bio-bins free of cost for waste processing for all the residents of the city. The volume of waste that would come to the proposed centralised processing unit needed to be regulated by promoting the processing and management of waste at source, he said. The council rejected the resolution moved by UDF councillors against the five per cent hike in service tax. The resolution, according to the Mayor, was a politically motivated one aimed at derailing the development activities of the civic body.
No room for complacency till counting is completed, Chandrababu Naidu tells TDP-BJP-JSP contestants. The TDP-BJP-JSP alliance will register a comfortable victory in the general elections over the YSRCP, he says. Alleging that the YSRCP has conspired to create disturbances on the counting day, the TDP national president advises the chief counting agents and their teams to see to it that the officials adhere to norms related to counting.