CHENNAI: The corona pandemic and tendering issues, along with non-payment of salary for conservancy workers, have disrupted civic issues redressal in Chitlapakkam panchayat. Residents complain that garbage is being collected in their locality only twice a week.
The town panchayat has a total of 15,000 houses and a population of 60,000. About a year ago, five minivans were rolled out to collect trash from about 7,000 houses, while the rest were being collected by manually operated tricycles.
“Recently, there was an issue with regard to the tendering of garbage collection, and the conservancy workers were not being paid. So suddenly, the five vehicles were stopped. Nobody could stock up garbage in their houses for more than three days, so people started dumping it on roadsides,” said Dayanand Krishnan, a resident of Thirumagal Nagar.
After repeated complaints, the local panchayat officials started operating four minivans and two battery vehicles. However, that did not solve the problem. “Each van covers 700 houses, and there are only four vans. People still have to wait for more than three days for the vehicle to arrive at their houses. Last, the garbage was collected three days ago.
We have to keep calling authorities, and they finally send a van someday. At a time when hygiene is being promoted, the current scenario here negates the whole idea,” said G Prashanth, a resident. With mounting fear of Covid-19, residents fear this could be another reason for spread. “Some residents are even disposing masks and gloves on the roads.
Recently, we could see masks floating in rainwater,” said S Priyanka, another resident, and urged the civic authorities to take care of at least the biomedical waste. When queried, an official from the town panchayat said, “Some of the manually operated tricycles are under repair. They will start operating in a couple of days, and depending on the demand then, we will increase the battery operated vehicles.”