KOCHI: Even as the city police hunt down tanker lorries that dispose septic waste in public places, the Kochi Corporation continues to keep mum as to where the city’s such waste should go. Drivers and operators of tanker lorries carrying septic waste are in a fix as there are no official instructions regarding the place where the muck should be disposed. “Since we are not told where to dump the septic waste, we dispose it off at some unused water body or uninhabited place after sterlizing it by mixing 4 kilos of lime to 1000 litres of septic waste. There is also an issue of anti-social elements blocking our way and demanding payment before letting us proceed. If we disagree, they beat us and wake the locals too. As the public are unaware of this, they tend to think that we are dumping septic waste in their area and they too harass us,” said a driver of a septic tanker lorry. Meanwhile, the Corporation health officials agreed that there are no facilities in the city for proper disposal of septic waste. “As of now, we do not have any facility for treating and disposing septic waste. But all the efforts of the Kochi Corporation to start septage treatment centres in the city were snubbed due to stiff opposition from the general public. When the land in Brahmapuram was allotted for the construction of a treatment plant, the locals held out protests and we had to drop the plan. When the plan to start a plant at Mundamveli was proposed, the issue of mangrove conservation was brought up and hence, we dropped the project. But now, over 30 apartment buildings have been constructed there and nobody spoke of any mangroves. Why is it that the public don’t realise the need for a proper septage treatment plant in the city?” said a highly placed official with the Kochi Corporation. He added that the authorities are now looking towards leasing an acre of land belonging to the Cochin Port Trust to start a septage treatment plant.
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