After AA Block, the location of yet another waste transfer plant is causing anguish among local residents. This plant is on a road running by New Town Heights, opposite Sukhobrishti, in Action Area III, which goes towards the Iskcon cow shed.
As reported in The Telegraph Salt Lake in the edition dated July 20, the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) aims to remove all roadside bins where garbage is now dumped from motorised vans that pick up segregated domestic waste from doorsteps.
According to the plan, 15 waste transfer stations will be built across the township where litter collected from houses will be transferred to a large bin which will be picked up by a truck-mounted compactor for transfer to the Dhapa dumping ground.
Though the site, where construction of the plant is under way, is across a four-lane road flanking the complex, residents, especially those staying in the apartments facing the road, are apprehensive of odour and visual pollution.
A site chosen for a plant in AA Block had run into local resistance as well for the same reasons, with residents sitting on guard to prevent construction. Since that spot was close to a resident's house, the plan was shelved right after ground digging started. Construction is nearing completion for the Action Area III plant.
The waste transfer plant under construction.
“Earlier stall keepers from the adjacent illegal market used to dump their waste here. When the plot was cleared by NKDA, we were relieved. We heard a senior citizen’s park would be coming up there. Then the rumour was there would be a bio toilet. But a toilet is coming up further up the road. Now we realise, perhaps a bit too late, that it would be a waste transfer plant,” said Hemant Sareen, who stays on the first floor of one of the apartment blocs facing the road where the plant is coming up.
Sourabh Bhattacharya worries about what situation will be during the rainy season. “Water stagnates on this road submerging it for two to three days. What would happen if the last pile of garbage remained uncollected before a heavy shower?” he wondered.
Sameer Sharma, president, Newtown Heights Apartment Owners, is apprehensive of a time when the Sukhobristi complex will be ready and more families will move into the neighbouring Elita Garden Vista. “We have our own waste treatment plant inside the complex but all their garbage will be dumped at the NKDA plant next to us,” he said.
Association secretary Siddhartha Majumdar says that the residents' body had written to the NKDA top brass with a mass petition of about 200 residents. “We have contacted the NKDA officials thrice. They need to engage with us and show us what their plan is and share some documented evidence that the plant would not be a pollution hazard,” he said.
An NKDA official pointed out that the sites for the plants were chosen after a lot of planning. “They have to be equidistant, be at the centre of a locality and accessible to dumpers. If we don't plan ahead for waste collection, there will be open dumping everywhere,” he pointed out.
“That is why we are building protected places covered on three sides everywhere, within a compact space.”
Each station will be a 20ft high room, about 40ft in length, with rolling shutters. The collection vans as well as the compactor trucks will enter the station for the garbage transfer to take place inside. “We will make sure it will not be a problem for them,” the official assured.
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