Cuttack: The civic body plans to come up with three five tonne capacity decentralised compost plants here.

The three plants have been planned for better disposal of solid waste generated in the city and treating municipal waste into compost.

Municipal commissioner Bikash Ranjan Mohapatra told The Telegraph on Sunday that the three compost plants had been planned under Swachh Bharat Mission and the first one will be set up at Chakradhapur.

"In fact, tenders have already been invited for the five tonne compost plant at Chakradharpur," Mohapatra said.

The civic body has a dumping yard sprawling over 27 acre area at Chakradharpur near the south western outskirts of the municipal area.

All the municipal wastes generated in the city are now transported to the landfill site there.

"The district administration has already allotted land for the compost plant near the landfill site," the municipal commissioner said. The location for the other two five tonne decentralised compost plants will be finalised after the compost plant at Chakradhapur became operational," he added.

The municipal corporation had estimated that the three five tonne decentralised compost plant would come up for Rs 14.64 crore. The entire project outlay has been allocated in the civic body's 2018-19 budget.

According to the civic body's estimates, the city generates 200 to 250 tonnes of municipal wastes daily, but it doesn't have enough capacity to treat them. As a result, everything is dumped at the Chakradharpur landfill site.

Earlier, official sources said there were two compost plants - a one tonne capacity plant at Nehrupalli and a five tonne capacity plant at Sati Chaura. Both were set up in 1998. But by 2007, both the compost plants were closed down as the civic body incurred heavy loss.

Around five tonnes of compost produced at the Sati Chaura plant were being used in corporation parks, official sources said.

The civic body in pursuance of a direction from the state housing and urban development department had also decided to set up decentralised compost plant at the two major vegetable markets here.

"We have selected locations for mini-organic compost plants at Chhatra Bazaar and Krushak Bazaar and issued work order to set up the plants," the municipal commissioner said.

Efforts are on to sensitise the vegetable vendors at both the markets on source segregation of waste that will help making the compost easier, he added.