MADURAI: In a bid to make Madurai a garbage bin-free city, the Public Health Department of Madurai Corporation has constituted a new strategy with the existing resources.
Corporation Commissioner S Visakan, on July 19, 2019 announced that the civic body was on the way to make Madurai, a garbage bin-free city and assured to do the same in a year's time. Bethaniyapuram was also chosen as a model ward to implement the initiative. However, with the outbreak of pandemic, all such developmental works came to halt.
A year and a half after the announcement, official sources said that the most number of public complaints to the health department were pertaining to garbage issues. Speaking to TNIE, City Health Officer P Kumaragurubaran, said that the dumper bins gets filled right after the sanitary workers empty it. It further reduces the number of people using door-to-door garbage collection service. In a bid to avoid such things and implement the initiative in a full fledged manner, the civic body has come up with a plan. As on date, Corporation has 100 light commercial vehicles (LCVs) and 900 tricycles. Each LCV could cover 1,000 households in a trip with a manpower of three sanitary workers. Similarly, each tricycle that requires two sanitary workers could cover a total of 250 households in a trip.
According to the new plan, "The LCVs would be used for areas under Zone 1 and 4 which are located far away from the main city and also have broader roads. The tricycles would be used for Zone 2 and 3 which has narrow roads. This would reduce both the manpower and time consumption in collecting the door-to-door household wastes. However, it would increase the monthly expense by 75 lakh," said the CHO, adding that the plan has been approved by the Corporation Chief and awaits the fund now. Further, of the 41 micro composting centers (MCCs), 16 has been functioning completely and 15 is on trial run. The collected household wastes would be taken to the nearby MCC and segregated into biodegradable and non-biodegradable wastes. The non-biodegradable would be transported to the Corporation dump yard at Vellakkal, while the biodegradable would be converted into manure at the MCCs, he said.
He further added that the garbage bins would be removed in a phased manner. To avoid traffic congestion while emptying the bins, 75 per cent of the works would be carried out during the night hours and only 25 per cent would be done during the day.