Plant likely to come up on
Port Trust land at Kundannoor
The city may soon get a
modern septage treatment plant if the plans of the Kochi Corporation fructify.
A septage treatment plant
would come up at a four-acre land of the Cochin Port Trust (CPT) at Kundannoor
within one year.
The CPT has issued a
letter to the Kochi Corporation expressing its willingness to hand over the
land on long-term lease. The local body would have to pay an annual lease
amount of Rs. 1.75 lakh for the land, said T.K. Ashraf, chairman of the Health
Standing Committee of the Kochi Corporation.
The city lacks proper
septage treatment facilities. The dumping of septage on the flanks of roads,
drains and vacant holdings often leads to violent incidents in city. There has
also been widespread protest by residents against the dumping of waste in city
areas.
In a recent incident, an
irate mob had set fire to a tanker lorry that had brought septage to be drained
near the Vallarpadam International Container Terminal Road. Local police had
taken a few persons into custody following the incident.
EOI
TO BE INVITED
The local body plans to
establish the treatment facility on a Build-Operate-Transfer mode and an
Expression of Interest will be floated for the purpose. The agency that wins
the bid will have to pay royalty to the local body for running the plant.
Public sector agencies like KITCO may be entrusted with the task of preparing
bid documents for the Expression of Interest. The proposal was discussed at a
recent meeting of the Steering Committee of the Kochi Corporation, he said.
Several technologies for
treating septage are available. The ideal one for the city would be selected
from the bids to be submitted by the bidders, Mr. Ashraf said.
According to M. Ashraf,
several individual entrepreneurs as well as companies have approached the local
body with proposals for setting up treatment facilities in the city. Some of
them had offered to set up the plant at their own expense if the local body
could provide them land for the units.
Going by the understanding
with the CPT, refuses from the ships visiting the Cochin Port will have to be
treated at the upcoming plant besides the waste collected from parts of the
city.
The local body could
charge user fee from the private tankers that bring septage for treatment. A feasibility
study carried out by a private agency indicated that nearly 250 tanker lorries
would bring refuses for treatment a day if such a treatment facility was set up
in the city, he said.
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