Civic chief,Mayor visit villages; assurances fall on deaf ears

With nearly 1,200 tonnes of garbage not being processed and more garbage to be generated on the third day,officials are trying to make use of the 15 biogas plants and speed up the commissioning of another 700-tonne processing unit in the city.

“We are working out ways to resolve the issue. The demands included capping and proper processing of the garbage at the site. There have been some backlogs from our side,which we will speed up at the earliest. While capping will take at least three years,the other issues regarding infrastructure will be resolved soon. However,the land acquisition compensation demanded by villagers is a high court matter,which will only be resolved by the court. Their demand for jobs will be put forth to the state government,’’ Phatak told Newsline.

He said the villages and surrounding areas too generate a large amount of garbage. “There have been some issues regarding processing with some machine failures,which we are looking into. We will check out the processing of the reject from machines as well as the unprocessed garbage. This will be addressed immediately.”

Though the civic body plans to double the number of biogas units in the coming year,the processing at this plant will have to continue with alternative sites yet to be handed over to the corporation. With nearly 1,200-1,400 tonnes of garbage generated in the city a day,the corporation looks to have all these plants activated soon.

Villagers said they would continue the agitation as their demands had not been met. “We have received the letter but we are not happy with the assurances,” Kachra Depot Hatav Sangharsh Samiti president Bhagwan Bhadade said.