Urbanisation the key villain

Jun 09, 2012 |

Kochi

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Rapid urbanisation adds fuel to the issue of solid waste management in Kerala, according to experts who attended the two day national seminar on municipal waste management - way forward for Kerala here on Friday.

While delivering his opening remarks, Juan Miranda, director-general, South Asia Department of Asian Development Bank (ADB) remarked that in a state like Kerala where urbanisation is rapid, complexities are involved in municipal solid waste management.

There are issues related to finance, planning and land development and the state government and city corporations have huge responsibilities in tackling such issues.

Sudhir Krishna, secretary of the ministry of urban development, while presenting a paper on 'Urban Development in India - Plans and Programmes', mooted a system in which people pay for waste management. “People should pay to make waste management projects viable as we can't solely depend on government funding,” he said.

At present, the state generates 8,000 metric tonnes of municipal solid waste a day. In the next 50 years, this will increase five-fold.

“Though the segregation, collection and disposal of waste in the state are below the national average, the rate of treatment of waste exceeds the national average,” said Venu Rajamony, joint secretary of the depar-tment of economic affairs.

R.K. Singh, secretary of the local self government department, Kerala, during his presentation on ‘Urban development challenges in Kerala’, said that excessive litigation hampered the setting up of sewerage treatment plants in the state.

“Waste water is a pollution bomb and more than 80 per cent of wells in the state are contaminated due to the lack of proper sewerage networks,” he said.

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