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LMC spending ₹1.5L daily to reduce Shivri village waste mound
To reduce this mound, the Lucknow Municipal Corporation is also operating the waste treatment plant, which was not functional for months
LUCKNOW Five Poclain machine are working round-the-clock to reduce the waste mound at Shivri village, located close to the state capital. This pile, spreading across a 20-hectare area, weighs around 20 lakh metric tonnes. To reduce this mound, the Lucknow Municipal Corporation is also operating the waste treatment plant, which was not functional for months.
Additional municipal commissioner Arvind Rao, looking after the work ongoing at the Shivri plant, said, “For the last three years, the municipal corporation has suffered so much because of inept companies like Ecogreen, which was given the contract to run the treatment plant. The condition has gone so bad that there is no more space left to dump the garbage at the treatment plant, spread over 19 hectares of land.”
The officer added, “Five Poclain machines have been pressed into service to level the mounds of waste spread across the village. As the site had no place left, LMC trucks had to find a place to dump the solid waste picked up from different parts of the city. With the help of five Poclain machines, some space has now been created for the waste to be dumped. To this end, about ₹1.5 lakh is being spent every day.”
As ‘Ecogreen Company’ failed to run the treatment plant, the Municipal Corporation has taken over the command of the operation of the plant for the last 15 days, said Arvind Rao. About 200 litres of diesel is exhausted daily on one Poclain machine. In a day, about 1,000 litres of diesel is being consumed by these machines. In addition to this, there is the rent of Poclain machines and the cost of the employees hired to run them.
Rao further said, “Lucknow produces around 2,000 metric tonnes of garbage per day. LMC has started two machines to treat the waste in the plant. Whatever money is spent to run the plant would be cut from the bills of the Ecogreen company.” Reacting to this, an Ecogreen official said, “If we are not paid for our services, we would have to stop the work.”
