Chennai's waste woes worsen as Corporation plans to privatise SWM in 10 zones amid public outcry

CHENNAI: The city’s roads and lanes are littered with uncleared Corporation-owned trash cans; so much that it flows onto the sidewalks and even the main roads, making it a nightmare for pedestrians and commuters to navigate.

Over 6,000 metric tonnes (MT) of waste is generated across the city every day. To hasten the work and make the city litter-free, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) had privatised solid waste management (SWM) in 10 zones. Now, plans are on the anvil to hand over two more zones – Royapuram and Thiru Vi Ka Nagar (zones 5 and 6 respectively).

Denizens and activists opposed the move, and lamented over overflowing garbage bins on the roads and the usage of vacant sites as dumping grounds. Apart from the public littering every nook and corner of the city, they also accuse private conservancy workers of dumping garbage they collect from residential areas onto these sites.

Lack of manpower

“It has been more than 3 years after the zone was privatised. But clearing waste has slowed down a lot in the area,” pointed out T Shiva Guru, a resident of Velachery. “There is a delay in door-to-door collection and waste segregation. When complaints were raised to the zonal officials, they admitted to shortage of manpower for the slow pace of work.”

Since no awareness campaign was held among residents to segregate waste and hand it over to sanitary workers, they dump it on the streets.

Initially when the zones were handed over to the private contractors, garbage clearance and road sweeping were carried out regularly in the area especially in south Chennai. Now, SWM in the locality is poor, and at times, cleanliness workers failed to do door-to-door garbage collection.

“Though dustbins are kept on all the streets, it overflows within a day. It takes at least 2-3 days for the local body to clean the garbage from the road. Workers remove garbage in the locality only on alternative days. Authorities should monitor and ensure that regular waste collection is done across the city,” opined Y Rekha Lakshmi, a resident of Valasaravakkam.

‘Contractors loot money’

Privatisation of SWM has led to private contractors looting money from the Corporation, alleged Councillor R Jayaraman, CPI (M), Ward 4 in Tiruvottriyur (Zone 1).

“Contractors pay pittance to workers. It’s less than the salary they earned when they worked under GCC. Though multiple complaints were raised to increase the number of workers in each zone, nothing has changed,” he rued. “They have very few workers to do the job. So, if they don’t come even for a day or two, residents dump waste on the road, and dustbins overflow. This attracts stray animals and rodents.”

On the other hand, residents of Thiru Vi Ka Nagar (Zone 6) have been persuading the Corporation to privatise SWM in the area as they are unhappy with the Corporation workers.

“We’re glad the GCC is planning to privatise SWM in two zones. We urge the civic body to ensure the provider is well-equipped to handle it, and keep our streets and neighbourhoods free from garbage and debris. The GCC must also make sure there are sufficient workers for the job, and also absorb those who have been performing well in terms of attendance and quality of services,” stated C Raghukumar, a resident and civic activist in Perambur.

What GCC says

When contacted S Sakthimanikandan, Chief Engineer-SWM, GCC said that the number of complaints has reduced drastically after 10 zones were privatised for SWM.

“That’s why we decided to privatise 2 more zones in north Chennai. We’ve instructed contractors to follow the norms issued by the local body in collecting the waste and cleaning the roads with adequate manpower,” he added.

Since a worker oversees cleaning 0.5 to 1 kilometre in the area, regular review meetings are conducted to ensure that “private players follow the given norms with sufficient workers and equipment”.