Kivela

The last couple of days my colleagues and I noticed that there was a lot, err… even more garbage on street corners than normal in Chennai. We found out why…

RESIDENTS OF three thickly populated zones of Chennai have had to put up with piles of stinking garbage for the past few days after a new contractor appointed by the Chennai Corporation failed to get its act together even three days after his tenure began.
The previous contractor, CES Onyx of Singapore, which had been doing a commendable job for the last seven years, was replaced by the JBM-Fanalca joint venture after a fresh bid to clear 1,200 tonnes of garbage daily - one-third of the city’s total waste. But on August 25, JBM’s local company Neel Metals failed to show up with its garbage bins and compactors, leaving the residents with no option but to leave their waste by the roadside.
Neel Metals was nowhere to be seen even on Wednesday, four days after it took over. The 150 mini trucks it had deployed were simply not enough to handle the city’s waste in the absence of the 600-kg capacity bins and compactor trucks needed to transport the waste to the dump yard. While embarrassed Corporation officials initially tried to make light of the situation by calling it a transition hiccup, it was later forced to use its own trucks and men to clear the accumulated garbage. It even got Onyx to redeploy its bins and compactors to handle the emergency. With the non-performance of its new contractor evident, the Corporation has decided not to give it an additional zone that was originally allotted to it.
“It is a fact that Neel Metals failed to get its act together, though they were given the contract a month ago. We have given them notice and if they fail to improve within a month, we may review the contract,” Chennai Corporation Commissioner Rajesh Lakhoni told HT. Local Administration Minister M.K. Stalin blamed the delay on the non-arrival of garbage bins from Sintex, due to a fire in the company’s factory, and promised things would look up in 10 days. Neel Metals CEO P.S. Batra also promised “things would improve in the next few days”.

Source: yahoo India News

People here think it will take another 4 weeks for all garbage will be cleaned up. Do keep in mind that even at night its 30 degrees here and that a lot of people sleep on the streets…

Filed under: Chennai on August 30th, 2007