Corporation to float tenders for privatisation of waste management

The collection and transportation of solid waste from Thiruvotriyur, Manali, Madhavaram and Ambattur under Package 1 and zones Valasaravakkam, Alandur, Perungudi and Sholinganallur will soon be finalised as the administrative sanction has been granted by the state government. Teynampet, Kodambakkam and Adyar have already been contracted to Ramky. 

Tenders for an integrated municipal solid waste processing facility with waste to energy plant (WTE), sanitary landfill and reclamation of existing dump sites at Kodungaiyur (package 3) and Perungudi (package 4) will be floated soon, as the expert committee has given a green signal to these projects. 

D Karthikeyan, Commissioner, Greater Chennai Corporation, said that the civic body is in the final stages of calling out tenders for these projects. 

“The tenders will most likely be out within a week,” he said. Chennai generates 5,400 metric tonnes of municipal solid waste per day – for which a combination of technologies is required, said Karthikeyan. 

“The number of decentralised processing units like compost plants has gone up and we are generating good quality manure from these sites. But these are small-scale, localised solutions. We have seen good waste to energy plants functioning well in New Delhi, Indore and many other Indian cities but in our request for proposal, we have been technology-neutral, not specifying a single technology, which can be adopted based on our requirements,” said the Corporation head. 

Activists have been denouncing the waste-to-energy technologies, pointing out that there are more flaws in the existing plants than benefits. City-based waste policy expert Dharmesh Shah said, “The Okhla WTE plant in Delhi is highly polluting because of unsegregated garbage and one of the key problems that the plant is facing is that of disposal of ash. 

The Corporation cannot by-pass source segregation. No technology can burn unsegregated waste, which is low in calorie and high in moisture content. In addition to pollution caused by these plants by burning low calorific garbage, what is the plan for ash disposal?” The privatisation of collection and transportation has also worried conservancy workers, who have been agitating en masse. 

Following the privatisation of collection and transfer of other zones, the Corporation will be handling these services for Tondiarpet, Royapuram, Thiru-vi-Ka Nagar and Anna Nagar. “These are large zones and Corporation will retain its permanent employees for collection and transfer from these locations.