Coimbatore city corporation's plan to hire two excavators at Rs 1.3 crore draws flak

Around 1,000 to 1,100 tonnes of garbage is collected from the 100 wards in the city daily.
Smoke emanating from the Vellalore dump yard in Coimbatore. (File photo| EPS)
Smoke emanating from the Vellalore dump yard in Coimbatore. (File photo| EPS)

COIMBATORE: The proposal of Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation (CCMC) to spend around Rs 1.3 crores on renting two excavators to clear waste from the Vellalore dump yard has left several people surprised.

Around 1,000 to 1,100 tonnes of garbage is collected from the 100 wards in the city daily. Of this, 500 to 550 tonnes of waste is segregated and processed by private firms. The rest is dumped in the Vellalore dump yard, and years of dumping has turned the yard into small trash mountain. Based on National Green Tribunal's (NGT) directive, work began in May 2020 under the Smart Cities Mission to clear about 9.5 lakh cubic metre of legacy waste in the yard at an estimated cost of Rs 60.11 crores through bio-mining process.

The CCMC had dumped wastes in 128 of the 650-acre Vellalore dump yard over the past 10 years. Currently, the civic body had managed to retrieve around 20 acres by processing around 4 lakh cubic metres of garbage.

As part of continuing the process, the civic body has proposed to rent a couple of EX200 excavators and deploy them in the yard. According to sources, CCMC will be paying Rs 1.31 crore for operating, fuel, maintenance and salary for the operators of the excavators for one year. The decision has drawn flak from several quarters.

A councillor said, "The civic body could have purchased new or used excavator instead of paying such a huge sum as rent. A new excavator would only cost about Rs 60 to 70 lakhs."
CCMC Deputy Commissioner Dr M Sharmila said that the civic body is hiring the excavators and paying rent instead of buying one considering the other expenses including operators' salary, fuel, maintenance etc. "We had studied the feasibility of buying an excavator for use in the Vellalore dump yard. But the final calculations revealed that we would have spent more, so we rented them," she explained.

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