‘Privatisation bad for zero-waste initiative’

“The civic body had floated tenders worth around Rs 4,000 crore to privatise conservancy works in 11 of 15 zones. With this, one crore tonnes of garbage will be dumped at landfills for the next eight years. This will affect the zero-waste initiative,” Jayaram Venkatesan of Arappor Iyakkam said.

Tenders were floated to privatise garbage removal in Tiruvottiyur, Manali, Madhavaram, Ambattur, Valasaravakkam, Alandur, Perungudi, Sholinganallur, Adyar, Kodambakkam and Teynampet zones, and the bids are scheduled to be opened on Wednesday. Fearing loss of job, the conservancy workers have conducted several protests for the past several months.

Jayaram Venkatesan also demanded the civic body to cancel the tenders for privatisation as the potential private firms would dump the recyclable and biodegradable waste into the dumping yards, as the tenders are floated only for collection and transportation of waste.

“Before allowing private firms to collect and transport waste, the Corporation should create an infrastructure to compost and recycle waste. The tenders would undermine the Chennai Corporation’s zero-waste initiative. The tenders also violate Municipal Solid Waste Rules, 2016,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Greater Chennai Corporation commissioner G Prakash said that the civic body had already created facilities to compost 1,000 tonnes of wet waste. “We have brought down the garbage sent to dumping yards by 700 tonnes per day. Apart from this, several decentralised centres are in pipeline to compost all the wet waste (around 2,000 tonnes) before end of this year,” he added.

He also clarified that the preparation of tender documents was a long process and the privatisation tenders were prepared before the Municipal Solid Waste Rules came into effect.

“However, necessary modifications have been made to the tender conditions with the permission of the government. As per the new changes, the private firms would transport garbage to the decentralised waste processing centres instead of dumping them in landfills,” Prakash said. It is learnt that the new changes to tender condition would save at least Rs 200 crore on total estimation.