The Pallavaram lake will be completely restored by August 2016, Pallavaram municipal officials told the National Green Tribunal (NGT) Southern Bench last week.
They said the trial run of the Venkatamangalam Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) plant had already started and it would run to its full capacity by the end of this month.
The NGT Bench, comprising judicial member P. Jyothimani and R. Nagendran, were hearing a petition filed by S.P. Surendranath Karthik, seeking an order restraining the Pallavaram municipality from dumping garbage in the lake.
Civic groups in the locality have been demanding the revival of the lake as its margins had become a dumping ground. A status report filed by municipal officials said they had written a letter to the Public Works Department (PWD), the custodian of the lake, to obtain a no-objection certificate to carry out work on reviving the Pallavaram and Keelkatalai lakes. The officials are awaiting a reply from the Chief Engineer, PWD. Meanwhile, the municipal council passed a resolution on June 29 to obtain funds from Tamil Nadu Urban Infrastructure Financial Services Ltd. for restoring the lake.
Explaining the status of the MSW transfer stations, S. Sivasubramanian, Commissioner, Pallavaram municipality, said the work on the Ganapathypuram transfer station was over. However, it had not been granted consent to establish and operate owing to some issues pertaining to change in survey number.
“However, the station is being put to use on a trial basis and the garbage collected from the Pallavaram municipality is being transferred to Venkatamangalam and the dumping of garbage in the Ganapathypuram Periya Eri has stopped from June 1. The total garbage generated in Pallavaram municipality will be sent to the processing plant from July 15,” read the report.
It also said that the daily garbage collection from Tambaram would be transferred from the Kannadapalayam transfer station from July 20. The capacity of the Venkatamangalam MSW plant has been stepped up to 70 tonnes as on July 1.
“It is expected to reach full capacity of 300 tonnes by July 20,” the report said.
The case has been adjourned to August 4.
