Civic bodies given permission to dump garbage at Perungudi
Over the past few months, the Chennai Corporation has given permission to four municipalities in the Chennai Metropolitan Area to dump garbage in Perungudi. The site currently receives a few thousand tonnes of garbage and 200 tonnes of debris every day from the Chennai Corporation alone. Pallavaram, Madipakkam, Kottivakkam and Valasarawakkam municipalities have been allowed to use the site. The first three were granted permission with retrospective effect by the Corporation Council at its meeting on Friday. The local body is charging them Rs.261 per tonne, the same disposal charges levied on private parties dumping garbage at the site. Pallavaram, which generates about 75 tonnes of garbage a day, was using a 2.5-acre plot in Ganapathypuram for 35 years. As garbage had piled 15 feet high at the site, the High Court instructed the local body to immediately find an alternate site, according to a resolution passed by the council. The local body has been dumping part of its daily collection at Perungudi as a temporary measure. It hopes to use the solid waste management facility being developed for Pallavaram, Tambaram and Alandur local bodies at Venkatamangalam village at a cost of Rs.40 crore, which is expected to be ready in a year. It dumps about 50 tonnes of garbage daily at Perungudi. The Valasarawakkam municipality has been using the site for about two months now. The Madipakkam municipality was using a site in Karapakkam, where works on solid waste management improvement are currently being undertaken, and had sought permission to use Perungudi three months ago. Kottivakkam was using a lake to dump garbage. It was asked by the government to clean it up for rainwater harvesting. No information was available on when alternate sites would be identified by the last three municipalities in the resolutions passed on Friday. The Chennai Corporation was initially allotted 30 hectares on the Pallikaranai marsh that was later expanded to 58 for the dumping site. The Corporation had written to the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority to help it identify a new dump site in 2004.