Bhubaneswar, Jan. 25: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) city health officer has been asked to appear before Orissa High Court on March 4 and explain the status of the proposed solid waste management project near Bhuasuni on the city outskirts. BMC, however, is yet to decide on the model for waste management.

Sources said that corporation at a meeting today discussed two different methods of solid waste management but failed to reach a consensus on which model to adopt.

A high court division bench comprising justices Lakshmikanta Mohapatra and Indrajit Mohanty on January 21 had asked the city health officer to appraise it of the progress of the Bhuasuni project.

Sources said a landfill is supposed to be created for burying the waste but this would be done after a waste processing plant comes up at Bhuasuni. The BMC commissioner in an affidavit had indicated that the construction of a boundary wall at the dumping site would start on Thursday. A road connecting the site with the Khurda-Cuttack Road has already been laid.

Sources said two models were being considered for the solid waste treatment project at Bhuasuni. The first, which is an integrated management model, envisages a single operator taking care of collection, transportation and processing of solid waste from the place of origin to the project site.

The second or multiple-partnership model employs more than one contractor for these operations.

Today the BMC council held a meeting where both the models were discussed. However, it remained inconclusive and it was decided that another meeting would be held to discuss the pros and cons of the two models before taking the final call. However, sources in the BMC said the corporations such as Hyderabad, Puduchhery and Raipur have already adopted the integrated approach.

BMC commissioner Vishal Kumar Dev said: “While the integrated model is good from the point of view that one operator takes care of the entire operation including collection of waste, transportation and processing, the whole operation could come to a standstill if at any time service operator decides to stop work or pull out. However, in the second model the operation is unlikely to be affected in a major way if one of the operators breaks the contract or stops work. We will consider all these issues and reach a conclusion.”

The integrated system is also likely to do away with the corporation’s sweepers but the civic body does not appear to be in its favour. The corporation presently has 1,269 sweepers with almost 200 retiring every year. Sources said BMC would like its own men to do the job of cleaning central areas of the city. So any new strategy for solid waste management is certain to take into account the services of the sweepers on its pay roll. The BMC commissioner said the proposed solid waste management project in public private partnership mode would ensure improved waste collection and transportation system. The operator to be hired for the purpose and the municipal corporation could also benefit from the sale of recyclable waste generated and the compost to be generated from the processing plant to be set up at Bhuasuni.