Varsity rues wasteland

The following news item was retrieved from here.
"Ravenshaw University’s proposed second campus continues to be a waste ground as Cuttack Municipal Corporation dilly-dallies over its decision to shift its garbage dumping site.

The state government allotted 130 acres of land at Brajabiharipur Mauza under Athagarh Tehsil on the western outskirts of Cuttack for the proposed second campus. When efforts were initiated in November 2007 to acquire the land, nearly 57 acres were found to be under heaps of junk. Though university authorities had sought help from the Cuttack collector for the matter, there were no improvement in the situation as the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) pleaded it had “no alternative” to the Mauza ground.

Official sources, however, said 30 acres of land at Tulasadeipur under Barang block was provided as an alternative in December 2007. Both Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and CMC were expected to use it for disposal. Meanwhile, the CMC seems to be gravitating towards a common garbage-dumping yard under a Twin City Solid Waste Management Plan.

Orissa High Court on Thursday ordered the BMC and CMC to dispose garbage at a single point under the garbage-dumping process for the twin cities to facilitate a “waste-energy power project” proposed by the government. The court was hearing a PIL on solid waste management in the twin cities, when it gave the order.

Advocate-general B.K. Mahanti had said: “Some 61.41-acre of land has been identified at Bhuasuni in Bhubaneswar tehsil under Khurda for a dumping yard for both the CMC and BMC.” The court has fixed March 15 as the deadline for erecting the of boundary wall around the allocated land.

Khurda district collector had also filed an affidavit stating that the identified land had already been handed over to the civic bodies. Ravenshaw University authorities hoped the garbage hitch would be resolved with a common yard.

“We are keen to get through the process of acquiring land as the second campus has become a necessity to meet both the present and growing demand of students and there is hardly any scope for extension in the present campus,” said a university official."

I just pray that everything goes well and Ravenshaw has a new state of the art campus.