

Varanasi: Saturday brought a relief to the holy city as the officials of ministry of urban development, Government of India announced that NTPC will make the solid waste management (SWM) plant at Karsada functional by June end.

The SWM plant was closed after the Samajwadi Party came in power in the state in 2012 after which the company assigned for handling this plant had taken shelter of Allahabad High Court. The ministry cleared that till the state government finalizes any new company or agency to run SWM plant of Varanasi by 2016 end the NTPC will operate this plant. The scientific land fill (SLF) will also be created near the SWM plant at Karsada. Joint secretary (SBM) of the ministry of urban development Praveen Prakash, on Saturday, visited SWM plant at Karsada along with officials of Varanasi Municipal Corporation (VMC), NTPC, CNDS and other agencies to take stock of the site.

On April 16, during the meeting to review the progress of development projects launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other ministries for Varanasi, Prakash had already cleared that till the litigation pending in the HC and state government deciding new agency to operate SWM plant of Varanasi, NTPC is ready to operate it.

During the inspection of SWM plant, Prakash said, "The VMC will start transporting city solid waste to this plant by June 25 when the NTPC will make the plant functional." Prakash also disclosed that the issue of creating SLF near SWM plant has also been resolved. Now the NTPC will create the SLF, he said further adding that correspondence in this regard had been made with Union minister of state for energy and coal Piyush Goyal. A budget of over Rs 10 crores would be needed for creating SLF, informed Prakash.

As the SWM plant was lying defunct for over four years the VMC was bound to dump solid waste of the city, which is over 650 metric tonne per day, at the only dumping ground at Ramna. Due to improper dumping of garbage and spread of unhygienic condition in the vicinity of Ramna dumping ground, the villagers of nearby area had adopted warpath recently due to which removal of garbage from collection centres in the city localities had become impossible for many days.



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