BMC to build stadium at Daruthenga

Bhubaneswar: Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) will build a stadium at Daruthenga village on city outskirts though it is a panchayat and not under its administration.Daruthenga is the village that BMC used for years to dump waste. But the civic body no more dumps the waste there but promised peripheral development to the villagers. "We will construct a stadium spending more than Rs 6 crore in the village to instill sporting spirit and enhancing sports infrastructure. We have already built roads and drains. The stadium was a demand of the villagers as part of peripheral development. The bio-mining of the legacy waste is now going on in the village," said BMC additional commissioner Kailash Chandra Dash. The BMC was dumping municipal solid waste at the site from 2008 to the end of 2022. After the National Green Tribunal asked state govt to direct urban local bodies to stop open dumping of waste and bio-mine old (legacy) waste, BMC started the operation in 2023, officials said. The BMC promised the villagers that after stopping waste transportation it will bio-mine the old waste. "For the stadium, we have floated the tender and once the work is awarded to a contractor, construction will begin. We will set an example that we didn't leave the village in a neglected state," Dash added.BMC has taken up the second phase of bio-mining of 9 lakh metric tonnes of legacy waste dumped at Daruthenga. This will take the city's total legacy waste processed through bio-mining to 21 lakh metric tonnes as, in the past three years, 12 lakh metric tonnes have been cleared.