Report by Michael Rodrigues
Team Mangalorean Udupi

Udupi: The Consumer Forum organized a public interaction with Udupi City municipality president,  at Sathya Moorthy Auditorium of CMC here on  August 17. Interacting with the public, the president of Udupi City Municipality Kiran Kumar said that use of plastic carry bags will be completely banned in the city limits from  September 1, 2012.

When asked about the Disposal of Waste which is not being done suitably, leading to unhealthy atmosphere, Kumar responded that all measures will be undertaken in disposing the waste. He also said that the Town municipality had taken the measures in disposing the waste but due to the rise in number of apartments, residents are still using plastic for garbage which is causing difficulties in disposing.  He also said once we implement the ban on plastic starting September 1, and the violators penalized then the problems should  be tackled.

Further briefing on the plans of handling the solid waste, the government has already earmarked Rs 75 lakh to Rs 80 lakh. Most of the time the waste is thrown on either side of the roads instead of handing over to the SHGs members who come for door-to-door collection. Each house will be given two waste buckets to segregate the dry and wet waste. There are also plans to collect waste free of cost from the houses and only commercial set-ups will be charged. However, at present, a nominal amount is charged by the waste collectors. Door-to-door collection of waste will be strictly introduced. “We collected as many as 315 kgs of plastic recently when we raided the shops and other outlets. The CMC has plans to set up waste energy plants to make use of solid and wet waste,” he said.

" Lack of rainfall and absence of mechanised desilting work in the Baje dam, areas here have been hit with water shortage. The House has approached court against government’s decision of not going for mechanised desilting of tanks and ponds.“We had already written to the Deputy Commissioner during October and March demanding for mechanised desilting of the Swarna River in catchment area ", Kumar added.

The CMC will take precautionary measures once the capacity of the inner flow of Swarna River reduces in the catchment area. “Although we may not be in a position to provide 24 hours water supply during May, we will see that there will be no shortage of water to the people in the city,” he added.

When asked about what measures would be taken against dearth of drinking water in the town since the town is faced with drinking water problem, he replied, "Baje Dam needs to be dredged, this has caused problem, we weren't aware of that earlier. In the last 5 days, water level has receded completely.  We can overcome this only through dredging that area.  But the law doesn't permit mechanized dredging process.  Hence we have appealed to the court through the Ministers for availing permission from the court for introducing mechanized dredging".

Replying to another query over several manhole openings in the middle of the roads, Kiran Kumar said that measures will be taken to reduce the problems created due to those manhole openings in the middle of the roads. He also assured to take strict measures over the lack of maintenance of public toilets especially in government and also in service bus stops. He said the company in charge will be penalised if hygiene and cleanliness in the area is not maintained.

Bharathi Chandrashekar, Vice President of the Town Municipality, Standing Committee President Prabhakar Poojary,  Consumer Forum President P Ravindra Nayak  and Damodar Ithal, the convener were present during the meet.