Compost plant misses deadline

The incomplete compost plant at Mailakanda in Mymensingh town. PHOTO: STAR

The compost plant under the Ecological Park project was scheduled to go into production in February this year. But it failed to start operation for failure to appoint staff and non-completion of necessary infrastructure.

Despite funding from the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) and the Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE) in January this year, Mymensingh Pourasabha failed to wake up for the project. CARE, Bangladesh was authorised to monitor activity and assist in the entire project work.

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Two partner NGOs, Save the Young and West Concern were also supposed to collaborate with the municipality. Save the Young started working in 21 municipal wards to motivate people about environment and total sanitation.

Initially, Mailakanda in Ward No 6 of the pourasabha was selected for the work and four trolley men were to collect garbage daily on experimental basis. The project was started through a survey conducted on July 25 last year and was scheduled to go into production in February this year.

When contacted, the Executive Engineer of the municipality, Md Akbar Hossain told The Daily Star it would take at least two more months to complete the necessary work although he was not sure about the project.

The Slum Development Officer of the municipality, Juglul Rahman who is in charge of supervising the project, told this correspondent the project would start 'as soon as possible'.

Required staff including four who will sort garbage according to its nature, four trolley men, one caretaker and a supervisor would be appointed 'soon', he said adding staff salaries would be paid by the Unicef 'as long as the project continues'.