Mysuru: Corporators came down heavily on three health officers and ten environmental engineers of the city corporation and held them responsible for the foul smelling sewage treatment plant at Vidyaranyapuram.
During the council meeting of Mysuru City Corporation here on Tuesday, when the issue related to continuation of contract to the sewage treatment plant to ‘IL & FS’ Waste Management came up, former Mayor Lingappa as well as corporators Uma Mani, Sandesh Swamy, Ramprasad, Purushotham, Shivakumar, Ayub Khan, Nandish Preetham and Srikantaiah took the officials to task for ineffective maintenance of the sewage treatment plant at Vidyaranyapuram.
“What were the corporation health officers and environmental engineers doing when the 300 acre garbage dumping yard was letting out an obnoxious smell?” questioned Lingappa. He went on to say, “If they had done their job responsibly, this situation would not have been raised and people in the surrounding places would not have had a difficult time all the while.”
Uma Mani, the corporator of ward 11 said, “The ones in-charge of maintaining the standard in this place should be more responsible. Many people living in the neighborhood are falling sick due to various air borne diseases and several prospective tenants in various apartments and homes went back after smelling the stench in the area. 400 tonnes of waste is dumped on this 300 acre land on a daily basis. Out of the total solid waste dumped here, only around 200 tonnes of waste is handled by the treatment plant at the sewage farm and the rest is dumped in the landfills. All hell breaks loose in the surrounding area when it rains.”
Corporator Shivakumar said, “The city corporation attempted to turn the waste into useful resources. Some of its proposals for making best of the solid waste have not taken shape. It thought of converting waste into energy as done in Mumbai, but did not make any headway. The digesters on the lines of Mumbai were it converts waste into manure was also in the pipe but didn’t take off”. The corporators also insisted Mayor to start zero waste management plants to avoid garbage at Vidyaranyapuram.”
Some of the corporators opposed Mayor Bhyrappa’s interest towards continuing the contract to IL & FS Waste Management. After going through nearly an hour long discussion on the subject, Bhyrappa assured the house that within 15 days again a tender will be floated and if again no one comes forward it will be awarded to IL & FS for which the locals agreed. At one stage, corporator Purushotham even threatened that if no suitable steps are taken to solve the issue in 15 days’ time, local likeminded people will not let any of the sewage carrying trucks into the treatment plant.
Devaraja Market Building will be demolished
After discussion with council members of Mysuru City Corporation, it was decided that the Devaraja Market building would be demolished while at the same time, they have come up with the decision that all the present stall owners will definitely be given their stalls once the proposed building comes up. A large number of traders had assembled in front of corporation to know what their fate would be.
After going through the various technicalities and report from the experts, Mayor Bhyrappa mentioned that the work can’t be made in a phased manner due to prevailing conditions. “As alternate measures, we are thinking of accommodating them in JK ground or other nearby places. All those who are working here will be given the stalls once the new building comes up. The proposed building will have multi-level parking facility and more than 700 people who have put up stalls”, he said.
With regard to the interim stay order from the High Court on demolishing Devaraja Market, Bhyrappa said, “The task force committee has given report to demolish the building. Hence in the upcoming hearing, I think the court will go with the task force committee report.”
Pailwan Mahadev, the President of Devaraja Market Traders Association said, “It’s not the right decision. We have got stay from high court and we will fight legally. This project can not happen because it is a heritage building and when they construct a new one, they should also preserve the previous style. There are 1122 shops in the market, 822 of them pay monthly rent while 300 of them pay rent on daily basis. There are three to four employees in each shop. Apart from this, many people are depending on this market as their lifeline for their livelihood.
