Alandur garbage collection work for private agency

By S. Shanker

CHENNAI, JUNE 25. The Alandur municipality has handed over garbage collection in almost a third of its municipal limits to a private agency.

The contract for the collection and transportation of garbage for the Adambakkam area has been awarded to a Bangalore-based agency, which has agreed to clear about 15 tonnes of refuse a day. The municipality will pay Rs. 659 per tonne of garbage collected and transported to its dumping yard. The rate is for a five-year period with no provision for cost escalation. The contractor would have to transport the garbage to the municipal compost yard at Pallikaranai, about eight km away, where a weigh bridge has been commissioned to measure the quantity delivered.

The local body has also leased out its 15-acre garbage site at Pallikaranai, to another private agency for developing a compost yard. The yard contractors have agreed to pay the local body Rs. 3.50 per tonne of refuse delivered at the dumping site.

The municipality has been clearing about 425 tonnes of garbage a month on an average from the area, comprising 262 streets in 15 wards, with a population of about 54,000. A part of the contractual obligation requires the contractor to maintain at least half the area as litter-free zones.

Sources say the private agency has employed 50 labourers. Five lorries have been deployed for collection and transportation of refuse. About 30 hand-carts have also been put to use to cover interior roads, where the trucks could not enter.

With the intention of promoting door-to-door collection, the workers drawing the carts have been provided whistles to announce their entry into streets, so that they could put their refuse into the carts, instead of dumping it in bins.

Sources said the agency collected 12 tonnes on Thursday. On Friday, about 24 tonnes were cleared.

Consequent to the privatisation move, the local body has stopped recruitment of conservancy staff. Workers displaced from the privatisation zone have been transferred to other areas, where conservancy operations are under the control of the local body. The privatisation would be taken up in other areas as and when the number of workers declines due to retirement.

The municipality incurs an expenditure of about Rs. 1.24 crores for conservancy operations annually and the two divisions, where the privatisation has been taken up, account for Rs. 37 lakhs.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : Strike by auto drivers disrupts traffic
Next     : Counselling for Siddha course