COIMBATORE: The tender application deadline to set up a waste-to-energy plant for the Coimbatore-Tirupur cluster has been extended till Oct 31. The project has gone through multiple extensions, including one in April, July, August and September.The project was announced in the 2025 state budget, following which it was proposed at a cost of Rs ₹450 crore at the Vellalore dump yard with a processing capacity of 1,200 tonne per day. The tenders were uploaded in February.R Sathish Kumar, an activist in Tirupur, said the project should be reconsidered. He said, “When you have no investors, why push for the project to be implemented? Moreover, this project’s core concept is incineration of waste, which is not a sustainable solution for waste management. The best example of the project being a failure model is at Kodungaiyur in Chennai, where the fly ash from the plant created a health hazard to the public residing in the surrounding areas. After so much protest, the plant has been shut down.”He said, “Officials clearly know that the project, once implemented, will face public outrage and be closed in at least six months, and the money invested will be of no use. The technique involved in this project is outdated and banned by other countries because of its hazardous consequences. The machinery is all imported, and its standard itself is doubtful.”K S Mohan, secretary, Kurichi-Vellalore Pollution Prevention Action Committee, demanded that the state govt implement a decentralised waste management project rather than going for clusters. “It is unfair to bring the whole Coimbatore corporation’s waste and waste from Tirupur to Vellalore. Just because other ward councillors are objecting, they cannot establish it here because we have been constantly protesting. The corporation has no proof to show that the proposed waste-to-energy project is a successful model. The corporation should drop the project.”
