Central Pollution Control Board officials inspect Vellalore dump yard

COIMBATORE: Officials from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) on Thursday inspected the Vellalore dump yard where the Coimbatore corporation has been piling up tonnes of garbage collected from residential and commercial areas.

The CPCB officials inspected the dump yard as directed by National Green Tribunal (NGT), South Zone. On Jan 12, based on a case being heard by it, the NGT impleaded the CPCB as a respondent, directing it to inspect the dump yard within six weeks and submit its inspection report on or before Feb 28.

KS Mohan, secretary of the Kurichi-Vellalore Pollution Prevention Action Committee, said, “The CPCB inspection is based on the petition by me. But corporation officials didn't allow me to enter the dump yard during the inspection. It is objectionable, and the inspection conducted today is illegal. Moreover, more than 500 sanitation workers had been deployed in the past three days to clean the area ahead of the inspection. The corporation had not previously engaged in any large-scale cleaning, despite public petitions regarding the unhygienic conditions and odours. Now, with higher officials inspecting the situation, the cleaning was done merely as a façade. It is a literal manipulation of the reality within the dump yard.”

A recent RTI reply regarding the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) inspection at the dump yard on Jan 30 stated that the processing facility on the premises was inadequate and led to the accumulation of fresh waste. In addition, the report mentioned that the current progress of the biomining phase 2 was also inadequate to meet the target of 48,000 MT per day.

It may be recalled that the NGT, in its order dated June 23, 2025, directed the TNPCB to conduct an inspection of the dump yard every month and file a monthly report. TNPCB officials have visited the dump yard every month since then and made some recommendations. RTI replies have revealed that though a few recommendations had been partially complied with, a few key recommendations -- like the upgradation of the leachate treatment plant to fully treat the leachate generated from sanitary landfill as well as from legacy waste to avoid groundwater contamination -- have not been complied with.