THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala State Poultry Development Corporation (KEPCO) has put forward an idea before the City Corporation to get rid of the tonnes of animal waste in the city. A proposal to set up a Carcass Utilisation Plant (CUP) at a cost of Rs 2.5 crore on 50 cents of land has been mooted by KEPCO and it is under the consideration of the Corporation.
The KEPCO officials had done a PowerPoint presentation on the proposal at the Corporation office some days back. The idea is to set up a plant with 90 per cent funds coming from the Central government and the Corporation putting in the rest. While the Corporation should collect animal waste from all points, including markets, KEPCO will shoulder the responsibility of running the plant, according to the proposal. The Carcass Utilisation Plant, having a capacity of 3.5 tonnes, would be able to treat the whole animal waste produced in the city per day.
While the CUP has the capacity to treat a whole, live animal body (like dead cows or street dogs) a rendering plant (RP) attached to it would treat animal waste created in markets and other places where slaughter takes place. The RP cooks the waste at 140 degrees Celsius for three hours at a stretch, killing the bacteria in the waste and reducing its fat content. It is then churned into a value-added product which is rich in protein content. This could be marketed as dog feed or pet feed by KEPCO.
"There is also a freezer storage facility with the CUP. The first stock of waste would not be rotten, but maybe the next arriving stock would be. So, this would help in preventing the stench. There is also a backup unit, so that if one fails to work, the other could come in handy. That’s why the cost is a bit high. But it would bring to an end a serious issue the city is grappling with,’’ said KEPCO Managing Director V Sunilkumar.
According to him, in European countries, CUPs are relied upon to treat animal waste. And Thiruvananthapuram could well set a model for treating animal waste in Kerala, he says. The KEPCO had submitted a proposal to the Centre for a CUP, which was okayed in principle. However, KEPCO had not taken it up since it required more quantity of waste than the mere 700 kilos they could collect a day.
Without a huge quantity to treat, the project would not be viable, KEPCO officials say. And that’s why they had approached the Corporation to join them. But it seems the Corporation is not fully convinced. ‘’We have referred the proposal to our Steering Committee for Waste Management. Also, we have asked the Sanitation Mission for its recommendations. We will take a decision once we get approval from them,’’ said Mayor K Chandrika.
However, sources said that the point of contention might be the sharing of the profit involved in the process of selling the value-added product. While KEPCO maintains that it has the forward-linkage systems which would enable it to sell the pet feeds through its outlets to farmers, the Corporation feels that it needs a share of the profit obtained through the sales.
Though this was communicated by the Corporation to the KEPCO, the latter is of the opinion that money comes secondary. Prime need is to get the project rolling. Arriving at a consensus on profit-sharing and finding a suitable land might pose problems. However, both the parties agree that it is a novel solution to a stinking problem.
Comments
0 comment