Sir,

This has reference to the news item ‘Hale Kesare residents demand shifting of Solid Waste Treatment Plant’ in Star of Mysore dated Jan. 30.

I would like to draw the attention of all concerned to my article “Is a true comprehensive Solid Waste Management (SWM) plan missing?” (Star of Mysore dated Sept. 3, 2020). This article had very critically analysed the shortcomings of SWM in Mysuru. In the context of Kesare SWM Plant which was under completion at that time I had stated: 

The main limitation could be that it was only 0.59 km away from Kesare village. Even though it fulfilled the minimum 0.50 km Original Terms of Reference limit, it might cause problem when the village expands in future.

As stated in that article, even the Rayanakere SWM Plant will face problem due to its proximity to the Mysore Airport. The Original Terms of Reference limit is a minimum of 20 kms from an airport, whereas this plant is hardly 3 kms away. And the airport is under expansion. So this plant certainly faces imminent closure in time to come.

For the past five decades and more, both the bureaucracy and the people’s representatives of local self government in Mysuru have betrayed the Mysureans.

One will be surprised to know the total number of top-notch engineers and the officials working in the city under one head or the other. Yet, the situation is no different in city transport, traffic management and other spheres where professional advise in the form of research reports were available. But all the concerned parties have preferred to short-change the citizens. 

And this is the situation when special grants have been pouring from the Central and State Governments under one project head or the other. Or maybe, that is the crux of all the problems?

– R. Chandra Prakash, Mysuru, 31.1.2024

Note: When merit is discounted while appointing bureaucrats and when officials sans sense of service to society, this kind of faulty public works are executed. If three innocent lives were lost last Sunday in city due to unscientific, faulty speed-breakers, it is because of incompetent, brainless, heartless, greedy engineers and contractors who survive under the protection of their political Gurus. Wish after the work on speed-breaker was completed the contractor or the engineer himself had taken a trial run over it both in a car and a motorcycle. Same observation can be made about the way these bureaucrats went about setting up of the SWM plants.—Ed

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