The State Level Monitoring Committee on solid waste management constituted by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has given an ultimatum to the Kochi Corporation to implement its directives issued in the wake of frequent fires at the Brahmapuram site before the first week of May.
“The next meeting of the State-level committee is likely to be held either during the last week of this month or the first week of May. The previous meeting of the committee held two weeks back had expressed its displeasure over the delay in implementing certain immediate measures at Brahmapuram,” committee chairman A.V. Ramakrishna Pillai told The Hindu on Wednesday.
Stating that the committee would present an action-taken report on Brahmapuram to the NGT after its next meeting, Mr. Pillai said establishing a firefighting system and installation of additional cameras were two major steps recommended by the committee on an urgent basis at Brahmapuram.
“Even after two major fires, the facility lacked a proper firefighting system, which includes an overhead tank and a pump set. Only two cameras were available at the site for surveillance. More cameras are required,” he said.
Additional roads
Pointing out that the corporation would have to implement at least those measures without delay, Mr. Pillai said the recommendation on constructing additional roads around the heaps of the waste was also pending. “The firefighters were finding it difficult to reach the site of fire due to the lack of adequate passageways to the garbage heaps,” he said.
The chairman said the proposal to restore the dumping site through biomining (technique used for segregation of useful materials from mounds of garbage) was pending. “We have directed the corporation to speed up the process of environment clearance for the proposed waste-to-energy plant at Brahmapuram,” he said.
Fire dept. report
Corporation Secretary R. Rahesh Kumar said they had sent the proposal for construction of roads around the garbage heaps to the State Election Commission for approval. “For the firefighting system, we had requested a report from the Fire and Rescue Services Department seeking technical specifications of the systems to be in place. We have received the report,” he said.
Mr. Kumar said a proposal for handing over the installation and maintenance of the enhanced surveillance system to the shortlisted security agency would soon be placed before the council. A proposal on whether GJ Eco Power, the agency implementing the waste-to-energy plant, could handle the biomining process was on the anvil, he said.