Over 100 Swachh auto tippers missing from Hyderabad city roads

Hyderabad: About 100 Swachh auto tippers meant for door-to-door garbage collection have been 'missing' as they were diverted for purposes other than those for which they were intended. This has caused garbage to pile up.

Since 2015, the GHMC has procured 4,500 auto tippers through the owner-cum-driver programme, each vehicle costing Rs 5 lakh. Of them, 4,457 auto tippers have been delivered and assigned to the six GHMC zones of LB Nagar, Charminar, Khairatabad, Serilingampally, Kukatpally and Secunderabad. Of these, 66 tippers have mysteriously disappeared.

Sources said that circle 4 (Moosarambagh), which had roughly 20 autos ‘missing’, was at the top of the list, followed by Khairatabad with 22 autos ‘missing’. Official sources informed that the auto tippers had been diverted by private persons, mostly henchmen of local politicians, for commercial use.

Further, the beneficiaries in various circles claimed that even after pursuing them for about six months, the civic body officials had not allotted them houses to pick up garbage. The beneficiaries mentioned that they paid a principal of Rs 41,000 under the SC/ST scheme and Rs 82,000 under BC beneficiaries.

The beneficiaries alleged that auto tippers were sanctioned to local goons and political leaders. They bemoaned that they were being hassled by private money lenders to repay the loans which they took at exorbitant interest rates to purchase the vehicles.

When asked about the matter, a senior GHMC official who asked to remain anonymous claimed that the 66 vehicles are not in operation because of factors such as total engine failure, condemned status, etc. According to him, there is a monitoring system in place for Swachh auto tippers, and SFAs use QR tags that are put on them to record attendance in the morning.