Delay in garbage collection leaves north Chennai streets in stink

Corporation sanitary supervisors cite that increase in garbage load and civic body being understaffed as reasons for delay

Uncollected garbage in outdated bins at the Elaiyamudali Street in Tondiarpet | EXPRESS

CHENNAI: For the past few days, garbage clearance has been delayed in several areas of north Chennai such as Tondiarpet, Washermenpet, Royapuram, and Thiruvottriyur, said residents.

As a result, the door-to-door collection was affected, letting piles of garbage remain on the streets.

Some of the affected streets were Elayamudali Street in Tondiarpet, Basuvayan Street, Shanmugarayan Street and Ramanuja Koodam street in Washermenpet, Cemetery Road in Royapuram and streets in Kattukuppam and Mugathwara Kuppam villages of Ennore.

When Express queried about this to local sanitation workers, they cited the increase in garbage load and the civic body being understaffed as reasons for delay.

‘‘All staff normally make three trips a day and if there is excess garbage generated, they have to make even five to six trips. This means, the staff have to work beyond their shift hours (6:30 am to 1:30 pm). This is when the problem of delay comes,’’ said a sanitation supervisor, on condition of anonymity.

The supervisor added that in such a scenario, the government staff 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 5400 metric tonnes of waste is generated, the conservancy workers said that the waste varies from day-to-day, and mostly it is in excess.

‘‘The trips ranges from three to seven times daily. The sanitation workers too are understaffed severely 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 show that affected areas in north Chennai generates less waste but has more staff while the zones of south Chennai generates more waste but has lesser staff compared to the north.

However, most areas in the south Chennai remain spick-and-span.

According to corporation data, Zone 1 generates 123.9 mt of waste daily, Zone 4 (Tondiarpet); 396 mt and Zone 5 (Royapuram); 458.1 mt. The zones have 1050, 1554 and 2068 conservancy workers respectively. However, there is a delay in conservancy here, in stark contrast to the south Chennai areas.

Whereas 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 1057 staff and Zone 11 (Valasaravakkam) generating only 107.5 mt waste has 1112 staff.

On the other hand, due to lack of adequate battery-operated vehicles to transport waste from the community bins to resource recovery centre to composter, the bins have been overflowing in several areas.

When contacted, a senior corporation official said that the civic body had adequate number of staff 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), 8 (Anna Nagar), all the other 11 zones will be fully privatised,’’ said the official.

Table - North Chennai vs South Chennai zones