Mangaluru: The Mangaluru City Corporation has proposed to upgrade its solid waste processing plant and associated facilities at Pachchanady with advanced machines under the Swachh Bharat Mission.

Though a State-level technical committee has approved the project proposal, estimated at ₹12.56 crore, the council of the civic body temporarily withheld its approval on the grounds that land issues for opening dry waste collection centres in the city would have to be sorted out first.

As the council has referred the proposal to the Standing Committee for Public Health, Education and Social Justice for the review, the start of the project is likely to be delayed for a year.

It is due to imminent delay in the series of procedures of approval involved as the announcement of Assembly elections is round the corner, sources in the corporation said.

The project has proposed to install four new advanced machines to increase the quality of processing.

One of the prominent feature of the upgrade is making the best use of available space in the garbage processing plant to process increasing quantity of solid waste being received at the plant.

It is without acquiring additional land to store the increasing quantity at Pachchanady.

The plant, built more than 10 years ago, has the capacity to store 220 tonnes of garbage a day before processing. But now the plant has been receiving 300 tonnes to 350 tonnes of garbage a day.

Sources said that if the liquid content in the garbage being received at the plant was squeezed out (extrusion method) before dumping them as windrows for composting, more garbage could be stocked in the plant. It has been proposed to install a machine to squeeze out leachete from the solid waste for the first time in any civic body.

There is a proposal to install a shredder to cut into pieces the green garbage including the trunks and branches of trees.

In addition, installation of an advanced bag opener machine to pierce even tiny bags tied with garbage to it out, and a pre-sorting machine to separate tiny materials in the final stage of processing of the garbage has been proposed.

The proposal also includes procurement of fire fighting equipment, roofing replacement of the existing plant, installation of sanitary napkin incinerators.

Of the total project cost, 35 % would be met by the Union government, 23.30 % from the State government and the remaining from the corporation.