Dhanbad: After being adjudged the 'cleanest city in the state' and 19th in the country in Swachh Survekshan 2018, Chas Municipal Corporation (CMC) is gearing up to further improve its ranking by launching a mega solid waste management project at Kalapathar, 7km from Bokaro, to handle 30 tonnes of daily garbage.

The swachh rankings were announced by the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs in Indore in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 23.

A joint team of the district administration and the civic body led by Chas SDO Satish Chandra is scheduled to visit Kalapathar soon to hold a meeting with villagers of surrounding areas to convince them about the advantages of the project which is likely to come up on a 10-acre land allotted to the CMC for the purpose.

Although the state urban development department had sanctioned Rs 23 crore for the project in 2015, work could not start because of protests by people of Chikaria, Nawadih, Nichitpur, Gomdidih, Siyalgadda and Kupnaki villages, all located close to Kalapathar.

They have been opposing the project for the last three years claiming that dumping of garbage would trigger various kinds of health hazards and diseases.

On December 16, 2016, the district administration had faced stiff resistance from villagers when it tried to build a boundary wall on the land forcing it to stop work midway.

Talking to The Telegraph on Friday, chief executive officer of the civic body, Jagdish Prasad Yadav, said, "We had initiated a series of steps including extension of door-to-door garbage collection to all the 35 besides installing low-cost garbage composters at nine residential apartments."

He added that the corporation had also installed a bulk garbage composter which helped the city improve its ranking. "We are now planning to concentrate on scientific disposal of waste by implementing the solid waste management project," he added.

"Due to unavailability of land for garbage disposal, we have to dump trash collected from different wards at a temporary dumping site. We have now raised the issue with Bokaro deputy commissioner Mritunjay Kumar Baranwal and Chas SDO Satish Chandra. We will visit Kalapathar soon and hold a meeting with the villagers," said Yadav.

"We will try to impress upon the villagers that the project is aimed at benefiting them and there is no risk of diseases being spread because of the dumping site," Chandra said.