Corporation yet to tackle waste management issue

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The Chennai Corporation remains a sleeping giant with regard to solid waste management, even as more than two crore tonnes of waste is piled up at its major garbage dumping yards.

It all started in 2007, with the civic body first issuing showcause notices to private firm Neel Metal Fanlca that was engaged to clear garbage from Chennai.

The trend continues with the incumbent Ramky Enviro Engineers Ltd, which took over waste management in January this year, receiving three showcause notices within nine months.

The top brass of the city corporation and Ramky are now keeping their fingers crossed and the corporation helpline 1913 on Monday also recorded six complaints regarding garbage stagnation in outsourced zones.

“The third notice was served last week and as of now there is no idea of terminating Ramky’s service, but we want the firm to scale up its operations and improve the waste management in Chennai,” corporation commissioner D. Karthickeyan said.

The showcause notice is to warn them and if their performance is not up to the mark, a part of the payment will be held back as penalty, the commissioner said.

A senior Ramky official said waste management has certainly improved in Chennai. “We are committed to cleaning Chennai, but the corporation is not paying us properly and there are penalties running into several crores.

Our management is also not happy with the civic body’s payment module. There has to a balancing act and we are at the receiving end, facing inflation and high input costs,” the official said.

“We have been screaming about the issue in the council and it is time the civic body terminates Ramky and goes for other options.

Corporation workers are performing better in a few zones and the need of the hour is to recruit more sanitary workers,” said DMK floor leader in the corporation Subash Chandra Bose.

“The corporation started outsourcing waste management to cut down its capital expenditure as outsourcing was cheap compared with hiring permanent staff.

The cost-cutting measure has now started back firing and on a monthly basis close `6 crore is paid to clear the waste in outsourced wards,” quipped a corporation official.