The Hindu : Front Page : No dustbins around, garbage piles up

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Aug 27, 2007
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No dustbins around, garbage piles up

Staff Reporter

Onyx goes, takes its equipment with it

— Photo: M.Vedhan

EYESORE: Garbage strewn on VR Pillai Street in Triplicane.

CHENNAI: Residents of several areas in the city on Sunday had to put up with another day of garbage pile-up on the streets, as Neel Metal, the new solid waste management contractor in four zones of Chennai Corporation, settled down.

With Onyx, which operated in three zones, taking the roadside plastic dustbins with it, their replacements were nowhere to be seen a day after Neel Metal took over garbage clearance in Ice House, Adyar, Kodambakkam and Pulianthope zones.

Residents of T. Nagar complained that some Onyx workers on Saturday sought monetary farewell gifts. Heaps of garbage remained uncollected on roadsides in both commercial and residential areas in the busy localities, including Triplicane, T. Nagar and posh neighbourhoods such as Venus Colony in Alwarpet on Sunday.

The new contractor has also been entrusted with the responsibility of dealing with segregated garbage.

Though Mayor M. Subramanian had announced last month that an awareness campaign on source segregation would be launched, residents of several localities said that they were unaware of the resolution passed by the Chennai Corporation making households responsible for segregating garbage at source.

During an interaction with the Corporation officials recently, Neel Metal personnel had said that the existing system of disposing garbage in roadside bins would continue. The garbage would then be moved to transfer stations by trucks. Source segregation practices would be introduced once this system was put in place by the firm, they said. Corporation Commissioner Rajesh Lakhoni said several complaints about garbage not being cleared were received from residents. Around 50 corporation lorries were deployed to clear some of the garbage piles. The corporation has further instructed Neel Metal to use its full fleet of 160 Tata ACEs in two shifts on Monday to clear all the garbage.

Single shift

The private contractor had used only 96 vehicles in a single shift on Sunday. Onyx the private contractor for solid waste management that wound up operations on Saturday should have left the dustbins till Sunday, he said. The local body official had meeting with various personnel from various levels of Neel Metal to ensure efficient garbage removal, he added.

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