A mission impossible

KOCHI: With the city reeling under severe waste treatment problem, many measures initiated by the District Sanitation Mission is going awry for want of proper attendance from the  authorities.Projects like building biogas plants, vermi-composting and windrow composting, which are better options to ward off the waste management crisis to an extent are moving at a snail’s pace.“The district Sanitation Mission provides subsidies to build biogas plants. But we cannot directly provide it as the project is being implemented through panchayats. Hence only those who are approaching the panchayats would be given subsidies,” said P K Alexander, District Coordinator, Sanitation Mission.As all these projects are being implemented through panchayats, the major push should come from the panchayats and there lies the major hurdle,” he said.Though the project was initiated a few years ago and the District Sanitation Mission is providing subsidies to build biogas plants, its is progressing at a snail’s pace.Besides, the criterion fixed is also adding up the woes as the services could not be extended to those beneficiaries who want to build biogas plants.“The attitude of the people is a major hurdle. As most of the projects implemented in the city to tackle the waste problem have been a failure, people are apprehensive of projects like vermi-composting, ring composting and biogas plants. This is the main reason why these projects are slackening,” he said.At the same time, there are also aided schools which are approaching the sanitary mission to build biogas plants as they would be of immense help to those schools which provide noon meals.But as the subsidies are being provided only for the government schools, the schools which are in dire need are not able to avail themselves of this service. Moreover, the subsidies are provided only to those who are below the poverty line. But waste management is an issue that cannot be compartmentalised.