CHENNAI: It’s 10 am on a Monday. Vehicles zip past Elayamudali Street in Tondiarpet, but motorists have to carefully manoeuvre as garbage overflows from a Corporation bin blocking a part of the road. The situation is similar even at noon. For the past few days, garbage clearance has been delayed in several areas of north Chennai including Tondiarpet, Washermenpet, Royapuram and Thiruvottiyur. This has irked residents because the delay has affected the door-to-door collection, letting piles of garbage remain on the streets.
Elayamudali Street is just one of the affected areas. Basuvayan Street, Shanmugarayan Street and Ramanuja Koodam street in Washermenpet, Cemetery Road in Royapuram and streets in Kattukuppam and Mugathwara Kuppam villages of Ennore are also victims to civic body’s apathy.
When Express visited these areas and asked local sanitary workers about this issue, they all rued that the increase in garbage load and the civic body being understaffed is the main reason for the delay.
“All staff members normally make three trips a day and if excess garbage is generated, they then have to make even five or six trips. This means, the staff members have to work beyond their shift hours (6.30 am to 1.30 pm). This is when the problem of delay arises,” said a sanitation supervisor, on condition of anonymity, adding that in such a scenario, they refuse to work. “We are pushed to reshuffle with the available private workers,” he said.
While the civic body, for over a year, has maintained that daily 5,400 metric tonnes of waste is generated, the conservancy workers said that the waste varies daily, and mostly it is in excess. “The trips range from three to seven times daily. The sanitation workers are understaffed to make multiple trips,” said Srinivasan S, a government conservancy worker.
A comparison of data on the ratio of waste generated and number of conservancy staff shows that affected areas in north Chennai generate less waste but have more staff members while the zones of south Chennai generate more waste but have fewer staff members. Most areas in south Chennai like LB Road in Adyar and Besant Avenue in Besant Nagar, remain clean.
According to Corporation data, Zone 1 (Thiruvottiyur) generates 123.9 mt of waste daily, Zone 4 (Tondiarpet); 396 mt and Zone 5 (Royapuram); 458.1 mt. These zones have 1,050, 1,554 and 2,068 workers respectively. However, there is a delay in the conservancy here, in stark contrast to south Chennai.
Zone 13 (Adyar) which generates 659.4 metric tonnes of waste has only 899 conservancy staff, Zone 12 (Alandur) generating only 167 mt of waste has 1,057 staff members and Zone 11 (Valasaravakkam) generating only 107.5 mt waste has 1,112 staff members.
On the other hand, due to lack of adequate battery-operated vehicles to transport waste from community bins to resource recovery centre to composter, the bins have been overflowing in several areas.
A senior Corporation official said that the civic body had adequate staff members for daily conservancy. “The delay could occur due to unexpected generation of waste in particular days and it has got nothing to do with the geography of the city nor the civic body either,” said the official.
Meanwhile, the civic body is set to privatise conservancy work in 11 zones completely. “Except for zones 4 (Tondiarpet), 5 (Royapuram), 6 (Thiru Vi Ka Nagar) and 8 (Anna Nagar), all the other 11 zones will be fully privatised,” said the official.