Following the footsteps of GHMC, the Secunderabad Cantonment Board has decided to purchase dumper-placers or vehicles that have machinery mounted to lift garbage bins. The Cantonment Board meeting on Thursday decided to purchase five dumper-placer vehicles and 200 bins.
Meanwhile, the GHMC has come under sharp criticism from various quarters as its dumper-placers can lift only the bins and nothing is done about the garbage spilled from the bins and waste thrown at open dumping points. Despite the GHMC hiring labourers, they have not been able to reach all the open garbage dumping points in the city.
However, the elected ward members of the Cantonment exuded confidence that there would be considerable improvement on the sanitation front by shifting to the dumper-placers and bin system. About 180 metric tonnes of garbage is generated daily within the Secunderabad Cantonment limits. While currently the Cantonment Board is lifting and transporting the garbage to the dumpyard, a private agency, Rudram Constructions and Power Private Limited, will soon manage the collection and disposal.
The SCB has given the contract to Rudram to lift the 180 MT of garbage and dispose it scientifically at a dump yard within a 50-km radius of the city, which would be managed by the agency itself. However, the SCB will continue to collect the garbage from the lanes and bylanes and the agency will be given the total garbage at an identified location or a transit point. The SCB chief executive officer said that currently the Cantonment was continuing to collect, transport and dispose the garbage. “Rudram will start taking the garbage once it gets clearances for the project from the Central Pollution Control Board and other agencies,” he added.
The SCB struck a deal with Rudram as the GHMC was charging the Cantonment a lot for dumping garbage at the Jawahar Nagar yard. Currently, SCB is spending around Rs 4 lakh per month for transporting garbage and it is also paying Rs 18 lakh per month to GHMC for dumping the same at Jawahar Nagar. “We (SCB) will save all this money and will also get an additional Rs 1 lakh per month from Rudram. The agency will also give a bank guarantee of Rs 1 crore. SCB will fine the agency Rs 15,000 for every day it does not lift the garbage,” said a senior official of the SCB.