900 Swachh autos go missing

Hyderabad: If Swachh autos are not turning up at your doorstep colony to collect garbage, it is because over 900 of them have gone missing. It is suspected that they are being used for commercial activities.

While it is yet to trace the missing autos, the GHMC is paying Rs 7,000 as EMI for each vehicle.

The corporation had distributed 2,500 auto tippers, each costing 4.5 lakh, under the owner-cum-driver scheme. They were meant to lift about 1,500 metric tonnes of garbage from households daily.

Each tipper is meant to pick up garbage from at least 800 households and collect Rs 50 on a monthly basis.

Having handed over the vehicles, the civic body simply did not keep watch over them. It has neither deployed an official to monitor the vehicles nor fixed GPS tracking systems on them. As a result, beneficiaries are using them for commercial purposes.

In August, only 1,617 vehicles turned up to collect garbage. In many places, an official said, residents simply threw the uncollected garbage on the roadside. The garbage is trapping rainwater and breeding mosquitoes.

A senior GHMC official on condition of anonymity said the corporation recently conducted a field survey and found that 15 per cent of Swachh autos were not reporting for duty. He claimed that some influential persons had taken control of the vehicles. He also promised an inquiry and suitable action.

He also said the GHMC will hold sanitary supervisors responsible for the Swachh autos and it would establish reporting points in each zone from 2 pm to 5 pm every day for the vehicles.