Pallikaranai and Athipattu to undergo bio-mining at Rs 8 crore

A decision to conduct bio-mining at Pallikaranai and Athipattu dump yards was taken in a special council meet held in October. According to the special council resolution, the Chennai Corporation has allotted Rs 5.70 crore for Athipattu and Rs 2.48 crore for Pallikaranai.

A Greater Chennai Corporation official said that the Athipattu was used as a dumping yard by the erstwhile Ambattur Municipality while Alandur Municipality used Pallikaranai as dump yard. “After Ambattur and Alandur merged with Chennai Corporation, dumping of garbage was stopped. We are now using them as transit stations,” the official said.

Explaining the process of bio-mining, the official said that the bio-gradable and non-degradable wastes would be manually segregated at the dump yards and recycled. The Chennai Corporation is also mulling to implement bio-mining in Sathangadu dumping yard.

The special council resolution also has permitted the Solid Waste Management Department of Chennai Corporation to build seven centres to collect hazardous waste in the north region and six centres in the south region at a cost of Rs 54 lakh and Rs 72 lakh respectively.

In another move to ensure the effective monitoring of removal of garbage from the streets, the Chennai Corporation has allotted Rs 17 lakh for fixing RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags in compactor bins and RFID readers in garbage trucks.

“RFID tags will help us to know whether a particular compactor bin is cleared or not. During the first phase, we are planning to fix RFID tags in 4,000 compactor bins at a cost of Rs 8 lakh and RFID readers will be fixed in lorries as a cost of Rs 9 lakh in Tondiarpet, Royapuram, Thiru Vi Ka Nagar and Anna Nagar zones,” the official said.

Also, six high-power desilting machines would be purchased at Rs 32 crore under Swachh Bharat Mission.