Mysuru has only one waste management plant

MYSURU: The nearly two lakh houses and 65 wards of Mysuru generate 403 tonnes of solid waste every day, but the city has only one centralised solid waste management plant in Vidyaranyapuram.

The plant can treat merely 200 tonnes of waste, but it receives nearly 380 tonnes of it as seven of the nine decentralised units in the city are currently not in working order although they cost nearly Rs 4 crore to set up under JNNURM  in 2011-2012.

Dumped with more waste than it can handle, the Vidyaranyapuram plant has become another Mandur with people of JP Nagar and other areas in a one kilometer radius of it complaining of the foul smell they have to put up with every day.   

Responding to the increasing complaints from the area, several corporators of the city led by KR constituency MLA, Somshekar and Mayor R. Lingappa inspected the decentralised solid waste management units along with the Mysore City Corporation officials here on Thursday.  

To their dismay, they found that  except for the decentralised unit at Kumbarkoppal and the Gangothri plant managed by the University of Mysore, none of the others were in working order.

While the unit at Gokulam is said to have shut down in the face of protests by the public in the area, the unit at Jodi thenginmara did not have basic infrastructure like electricity to operate.

Even when operational, the existing decentralised units can treat merely eight to 10 tonnes of solid waste per day, according to  corporation sources.

Now the MCC has proposed to set up two more mega solid waste treatment plants at Rayankere and Kesre, each with a capacity to treat 300 tonnes a day to help solve the city’s garbage troubles.