Fire at timber warehouse, no casualties
A massive fire at a timber warehouse near Nimtala Ghat in Kolkata caused panic among local residents late on Friday night.
The Kolkata Municipal Corporation has written to the city police not to allow trucks carrying building materials to cross the Majerhat Bridge. The decision was taken to enable better operations of the Pathuriaghata construction and demolition waste recycling plant that was commissioned by the civic body in the month of April. It has a capacity of processing 500 tonnes of construction and demolition waste every day. However, the plant is said to be not getting sufficient quantity of construction and demolition waste and it is being operated at a lower capacity. The civic body has therefore ordered the buildings department to hand over the waste of the structures being demolished by the civic body to the plant.
According to the mayor, such kind of waste from buildings is being transported to the southern fringes of the city via Majerhat Bridge to fill up ponds or even lowlands. “We have therefore urged the police to see that no lorries cross the bridge carrying building waste,” informed KMC mayor Firhad Hakim today. The municipal corporation has also asked the building department to make it compulsory to see how much waste is generated by demolishing a structure. Before the sanction of the plan, the civic body is to be informed where the building waste is planned to be disposed of.
The owners would have to deposit an amount to the civic body that would transport the waste to the designated plant. The KMC is also said to have written to other civic bodies, including those in North 24-Parganas, Salt Lake, Rajarhat, Hooghly and so on, to transport the building waste to the plant and keep them indisposed randomly. “If anyone refuses to hand over the waste, we will not sanction the plan. If they approach the court, we would request the court to see where the building waste could be disposed of,” said the mayor.
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