Cuttack, Aug. 13: The civic body has decided to set up two more transit stations for disposal of municipal solid waste generated in the city to reduce the load on the existing one.
At present, the municipal corporation has only one transit station at Sati Chaura where it dump solid waste collected every day before transportation to the landfill site at Chakradharpur, 20km from here.
"We plan to have at least two more transfer stations to create alternatives for the Sati Chaura transit point, which becomes overloaded and is not able to accommodate solid waste during breakdowns in the disposal process," municipal commissioner Bikash Mohapatra told The Telegraph today.
"We have started identifying suitable locations for the transit stations and we hope to be ready with the land shortly," he said.
The Cuttack Municipal Corporation area is home to 1.20 lakh households with a population of 6.3 lakh spread over 152sqkm, generating 400 metric tonnes of waste every day. Officials in the civic administration conceded that the private operator engaged on a monthly basis manages collects only around 200 metric tonnes of solid waste a day.
Official sources said the civic body was forced to plan for the additional transit stations after the transportation of garbage from the transfer station was paralysed for over a week recently. Mountains of garbage were piled up at Sati Chaura on the ring road side without being disposed, leading to a complete stop to the collection of solid waste from different parts of the city.
The chaos triggered widespread public uproar. There was also strong resentment among people around Sati Chaura as the piled up garbage brought caused eyesore and was a nauseating experience for them.
Dharmesh Nayak, a local resident, said: "With all the unpleasant smell, it becomes unbearable when garbage is not cleared from the transfer station."
Lawyer and social activist Pravat Ranjan Dash said: "The stink is so intolerable that it becomes difficult to even pass by without covering the face or feeling nauseated."
Mohapatra, however, said: "We expect normality to return within the next two days as the volume of garbage disposal to the Chakradharpur dump yard has been increased by pressing more trucks into service."
After a five-year contract with Ramky Enviro Engineers Limited of Hyderabad for solid waste collection and disposal expired in April 2016, the civic body allowed it to continue in an interim arrangement on a monthly contract basis as it has not been able to award fresh contract.
Ramky's operations manager Gitiranjan Mohanty said: "The disposal rate had gone down as the local residents on the way to Chakradharpur were not allowing trucks carrying garbage to pass at night."
"Villagers at Godisahi are demanding restoration of the roads there and had resorted to stopping vehicles carrying the garbage," Mohanty said.
The villagers complained that regular plying of garbage trucks had damaged the roads in their locality. Mohapatra said: "The impasse was broken after renovation of a nearly 7-km stretch near Godisahi".
The municipal corporation has earmarked a dumping yard over a 27 acre area at Chakradharpur.
