Growing menace of pests and disease due to Kolar landfill

The garbage dumping yard maintained by the city municipal council near Manighatta Road in Kolar is causing sleepless nights to the farmers of the region. The farmers are protesting the dumping of garbage at the site due to the adverse effects being caused to the nearby fields by the accumulated garbage.

A site of 1.5 acre belonging to the City Municipal Council (CMC) is being used as a landfill fro the past three to four months to dump a part of the garbage collected from the city.

The garbage is then segregated into wet and dry waste and the dry waste is burned off. The fire and smoke are causing the crops in the nearby fields to dry up and wither. The wet waste is drawing swarms of mosquitoes and other insects and the crops are being affected by various diseases.

Plastic bags litter the fields, while the farmers find it difficult to work in the fields due to the stink raised by the mounds of garbage.

The farmers have complained to the CMC about the nuisance caused by the garbage dump, but to no avail. Frustrated by the growing garbage menace, the farmers blocked the path of the tractors transporting the garbage from the city to the landfill.

CMC Commissioner K N Lakshminararayan and the other authorities who arrived at the site of the protest were taken to task by the protestors.

The CMC personnel tried to console the protestors who remained adamant that the CMC stop dumping garbage at the landfill. This created a tense atmosphere which prompted the CMC authorities to call in police reinforcements and finish transporting the garbage under their supervision.

The city generates nearly 45 tonne of garbage daily. Garbage is collected from the dumping yards behind Kolaramma lake and the KSRTC bus stand and near the Kodikannuru lake. Garbage was also being dumped at a private site in the city.

Once the owner of the yard instructed the CMC to stop dumping garbage in that site, the authorities started dumping garbage in the landfill near Manighatta Road, CMC President B M Mubarak told Deccan Herald.

“Some people are provoking farmers against the CMC for political gain and are derailing the process of garbage collection. We will console the farmers and solve this problem. We have identified a site outside the city to set up a waste processing unit. We will start the unit once we get permission from the Pollution Control Board,” he said.