CHENNAI: The Corporation of Chennai is likely to blacklist the supplier who provides compactor vehicles, after the contractor failed to deliver the number of vehicles as per agreement, thereby affecting waste collection process in the city. Speaking to CE, officials said that the Corporation had ordered 50 heavy and light- weight compactors from Pune-based Kam-Avida Enviro Engineers Private Limited, but have only received nine so far. With reminders and caution notices having little effect on the contractor, the civic body is now pondering the possibility of blacklisting the company.
“The company is a national supplier and provides compactors and other solid waste collection equipment to corporations and municipalities across the nation. We agreed to buy from them due to the network, but we didn’t think they would default on the supply,” said a senior official. Without the compactor vehicles, solid waste collection process has been affected, but officials maintained that they were able to make do. As per the civic body’s website, it runs and operates 161 big and small compactors. Officials noted that the life expectancy of the compactors was coming down and maintenance costs were running high.
“Maintenance costs are high because the compactor arms often fail as the bins we use are very heavy (1,100 litres),” said an official.
As a result, the civic body has been looking for cost effective and light-weight bins. “We have looked at a few models of 50 kg bins. The procurement of light-weight bins is on paper for now,” the official added.
Yet another change would be the replacement of manually-operated tricycles used for ward-to-ward waste collection with battery-operated tricycles. Chennai-based suppliers Shuttlecars India private limited has been zeroed in to procure these 48 volt battery-operated vehicles.
“These vehicles can reach a top speed of 22 kmph and have the capacity to carry nearly 400 kg of garbage at a time,” said a representative of the firm.
Each vehicle will cost the civic body `2.25 lakh, with officials confirming that the battery-operated vehicles will initially operate alongside the conventional tricycles before the latter is gradually phased out.