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Kathmandu Friday September 28, 2001 Ashwin 12, 2058.
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Solid waste composting
plants yet to be materialised
Post Report
BHAKTAPUR, Sept 27 - None of the 17 solid
waste composting plants, as was planned by the Bhaktapur Municipality (BM) a year ago,
could be constructed in that period, local representatives said.
"The municipality passed in the last
City Council meeting that there would be one composting plant in each of the 17 wards to
manage solid waste at local levels in one year but that never materialised," said a
ward member, asking for anonymity. "It was due to the lack of commitment among the
local representatives."
BM is holding its new City Council meeting on
Friday.
The City Council meeting of the municipality
allocated budget to acquire land for solid waste recycling and composting plants in the
city area a year ago. It was stated that BM would carry on the programmes to recycle solid
waste of a ward in the same area.
The member claimed that the central
decision-making body showed little interest to acquire land and work as per the annual
meeting.
"For the whole year, the members either
discussed unnecessary points or remained just silent on vital issues like this," he
said.
Chairman of Ward No 10 Aash Kumar Koju said
that he did not help construct composting plant in his area because he "did not have
the land to erect the plant".
Dhruba Narayan Libi, the chairman of Ward No
11 said, "We suggested to allocate at least 50 to 60 million rupees to acquire land
and make a composting plant for the whole municipality because composting garbage at a
small scale would cost a lot but the return would not be profitable."
"However, the central body neither
listened to our suggestion nor did what they promised," he said.
Among the 17 wards, Ward No 1 provided a
small piece of land near Brahmahyani temple for composting purposes and started collecting
garbage from the ward residents. But it stopped collecting the garbage even before it
launched a systematic production of manure as it lacked necessary infrastructure to run a
composting plant.
Dilip Kumar Suwal, the chief of Sanitation
Section at BM said, "The plan of establishing plants in all wards could not make
progress as the ward chairmen failed to locate the land for acquisition."
Presently, BM recycles around 30 to 40
percent of the garbage in its only one composting plant at Bhelukhel of Ward No. 11. As
the plant is not sufficient to manage the ever growing bulk of solid waste, the
municipality takes the remaining solid waste of the city for land filling along dry river
banks.
However, the section could not figure out the
total amount of garbage the municipality residents produce in a year.
The representatives hope to raise the same
issue in the next City Council meeting but they doubt that the ward chairmen would show
interest to take steps in the vital issue.
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