Coimbatore Corporation had reasons to believe that the Sunday’s fire in the Vellalore dump yard was an act of mischief, Commissioner Raja Gopal Sunkara told The Hindu on Tuesday.
A fire broke out on Sunday night at the dump yard, which the Corporation put out by Monday 6 a.m. The fire broke out on the northern side of the yard, abutting Kanjikonampalayam, where the Corporation dumped fresh waste. The moisture content in the fresh waste deterred the fire and this was perhaps a reason that fire spread was limited to waste on around 10 acre, said sources.
Miscreants who lit the fire could have entered the yard from the north where there was no compound. It was an unmanned area as well.
In fact, the Vellalore dump yard had remained unmanned for a couple of months after the manpower agency contracted to supply security personnel had withdrew its men. This was because of a delay in paying the contractual fee to the agency, Mr. Sunkara said.
The Corporation was trying to remedy the situation by taking steps to have the yard manned by security personnel. Its second task would be to fix closed circuit television cameras at vantage points in the yard.
The third would be to segregate the legacy and fresh waste into grids with sufficient space among the grids for earth movers, lorries, tankers and fire tenders to move in and out with ease, for daily waste dumping operation as well as fire fighting.
The Corporation had segregated the waste into grids a couple of years ago after a major fire raged for over 15 days but subsequent rain and wind undid the grids.
Mr. Sunkara said the Corporation was also trying to engage a solid waste management expert to study the entire dump yard, the land used by the waste management contractor, for vermi-compost plant, taken for dumping legacy waste and fresh waste.
The Corporation wanted to go in for a scientific way of waste dumping so to organise the entire waste dumping operation, he added.
