The State Pollution Control Board in Kerala has informed the Southern Bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) that the Maradu municipality is yet to provide facilities as per the provisions of Solid Waste Management and Construction and Demolition Waste Management Rules, 2016.
The board pointed out the lapse in its additional status report filed before the Bench on the case related to the non-compliance of norms in the removal of debris that emerged following the demolition of the apartments in Maradu on the basis of an order by the Supreme Court.
The secretary of the local body was given strict directives to submit action plans as per the Construction and Demolition Waste Management Rules, 2016 and to follow the waste management guidelines according to the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016.
The local body has not submitted its reply to the notice issued by the board on April 4 on the lack of facilities and the failure to obtain authorisation under the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 and Construction and Demolition Waste Management Rules, 2016. The municipality had a daily generation of about 14 metric tonnes of solid waste as per its population, according to the estimates by the board.
Lack of adequate space
Antony Asanparambil, chairman of the municipality, said that lack of adequate space was a major hurdle before the civic body in setting up centralised facilities for solid waste management.
"The efforts to transport the biodegradable waste to the Kochi Corporation's facility at Brahmapuram did not succeed, as the site had exceeded its carrying capacity. We are now focussing on source-level initiatives for management of biodegradable waste," he said.
The chairman said that about 1,700 bio bins will be distributed among the households at subsidised rates to promote source-level management of biodegradable waste. For plastic waste, the civic body has engaged the services of Haritha Karma Sena members for doorstep collection of non-biodegradable waste, he said.
