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Politicising garbage

Politics is often dirty, but rarely, if ever, does dirt occupy the centre stage in politics. In Tamil Nadu, the mounting piles of rotting garbage in parts of Chennai seized the imagination of political parties as never before. With the newly engaged private contractor, Neel Metal Fanalca proving unequal to the task of handling waste in the first few days of taking over, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government, as a desperate measure, enlisted the services of not only the Corporation employees and the previous contractor CES Onyx, but also of police personnel. While it was evident that garbage clearance was being taken up on a war-footing, the main opposition, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam was clearly determined to extract some mileage from the garbage crisis. The party general secretary, Jayalalithaa, instructed her party men to step in and remove the rubbish on the roads. The AIADMK, which had forced its members to resign from the Corporation Council citing irregularities in the elections, saw the garbage issue as a chance to recapture the vacated political space. But the government was not prepared to let the opposition steal a march and the AIADMK volunteers were detained by the police. The cleaning operation of the opposition ended just as it was intended to: a token protest meant to score political points.

Lost in the political controversy over the garbage pile-up are serious issues of public sanitation and privatisation of conservancy work. Neel Metal Fanalca claims its operations were hampered because of a fire in the factory of a private firm with which it had placed an order for 2,500 plastic bins. But despite having had a month’s time after the contract was finalised, it seems to have been strikingly unprepared for the unremarkable task of clearing only a small part of Chennai’s garbage. Only about one-fifth of the garbage in the three zones under its charge was cleared in the first four days. For its part, the Corporation has served notices on the contractor and has also deferred a decision on handing over the operations in a fourth zone. The lesson in all this is that privatisation does not automatically guarantee a more efficient service. And that issues of public hygiene should not be given short shrift in the guise of cutting costs. More important, such vital matters should not become the subject of political one-upmanship.

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