With the October 31 deadline set by the Navy to end the dumping of municipal waste at its site nearing, the Kochi Corporation is evolving a multi-pronged approach to deal with the situation. Pressure is now on the civic authorities to evolve steps on a war footing to remove the mounting heaps of garbage and control the mosquito menace in the city as the High Court has intervened in the issue.
Panic created by the spread of chikungunya fever and the public outcry against the delay in removing waste have forced the civic authorities to chart out an action plan. The civic body is going ahead with its decision of asking hospitals and Kochi flat  to process their own waste than dumping them on the garbage bins of the Corporation. The Corporation has floated tenders for finding out agencies for lifting garbage from the city. The civic body hopes to reduce the waste that comes to the common pool as far as possible.
The payment for lifting the waste from the city is unlikely to cause much financial burden as the civic body is at present spending considerable amount on account of dumping of waste at sites allotted to it. According to a rough estimate, the Corporation spends around Rs.1.60 crore in five months for sanitary landfill at the site offered by the Navy. The cost is incurred in the form of expenditure for waste collection, transportation, red earth that is to be spread over the layer of waste, lime powder and disinfectants.
The Kozhikode Corporation is paying around Rs.2,000 for each tonne of waste lifted from the city. The cost the Corporation may incur by way of payment for lifting the waste will only be slightly higher than what it is presently paying for the landfill