TIRUCHY: The outsourcing of door-to-door garbage collection in the city to a private firm last month has enabled the corporation to undertake intensive cleaning works almost on a daily basis. The civic body by engaging its sanitation workers who aren’t part of the garbage collection drive is now on an average clearing about 40 tonnes of drainage silt and accumulated sand and dust from the city streets every day, officials said.
"Earlier, we used to monitor road cleaning, door-to-door garbage collection and micro-composting works. We were hence not able to undertake intensive cleaning of drainage silt and roadside sand every day. Things have changed now and the handling of door-to-door garbage collection by the private firm has reduced a bit of our workload.
Our officials are able to give more attention to other sanitation activities. This has ensured intensive cleaning of the streets on most days," a senior corporation official said. The corporation also regularly updates the details of such intensive drives on its social media platforms.
A section of city residents have, however, raised doubts over the quantity of drainage silt and sand the corporation claims to have removed. Vigneshwaran K, a retired government official and resident of Srirangam, said, “One day, it (corporation) claims that it cleared 43 tonnes of drainage silt and sand from five zones.
The next day it would announce of a similar quantity having been cleared. How is it possible?” When enquired, a senior corporation official clarified that the civic body manages sanitation work in a road network stretching to about 1,600 km in all 65 wards of the city.
“Each day, we would identify 5 km or 10 km in each zone for intensive cleaning. The next day, we would cover another 5 km or 10 km. Thus, on an average we would remove about 40 tonnes of drainage silt and accumulated sand every day. The silt and sand would be used for landfill and compost centres," the official added.