Chennai: A third attempt by the Greater Chennai Corporation to figure out an integrated solid waste management solution for the city failed as there were “no takers” for the tender, according to officials. In January 2016, a single bidder for the tender offered to take up a study to determine “whether any solution could be found at all” for Chennai’s mounting solid waste problems. In fact, sources in the municipal administration department told DC that the success of the tender was even identified to be included as “one of the achievements” by the incumbent government, at least as far as the city was concerned. But that will not be happening now.
“The company wanted us to pay '5 crore to conduct a study for six months, at the end of which they still would not be able to guarantee that a solution will be found. So, we had to cancel the tender,” said an official. The ‘solution’ that the official referred to is a single concept for waste processing that the corporation is seeking to implement across the city. Thus far, composting, waste-to-energy and waste-to-biogas solutions have all been found unsuitable and unsustainable, according to officials.
“We simply cannot compost over 6,000 tonnes of garbage every day and for the other two to work out, there should be public awareness and education about source segregation, which evidently is absent,” a senior official commented. Since 2011, the corporation has tried and failed to implement an end-to-end waste management system that involves a single firm collecting, transporting, recycling, processing and disposing the residual waste.
When asked why the expertise of agencies like Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), who have tied up with the local body to set up bio-methanation plants in the city, was not called upon, a senior official remarked that available technology only allowed for processing a maximum of up to one to three tonnes of waste. “Besides, setting up such plants require at least one or two acres of space and which is hard to identify in Chennai city limits,” an official noted. “There is no proper idea available. Now, there are sections which have told us why don’t you learn from Western countries? In 2015, a team of waste management experts from the Netherlands visited the city, collected samples and went back. It has been more than six months and they don’t have a solution or else they would have communicated back to us,” the official added.
Environmental activist Dharmesh Shah observed that the corporation’s vision of looking at waste management “as a process on which considerable sum of money ought to be spent” is wrong. “But the important point is that the corporation is still not considering involving the citizens when trying to figure out a solution. Because the problem of waste management needs a collective solution,” Shah said. “When European cities are enacting legislation to enforce source segregation process, the reason that our government is hesitant because here there is a political quotient attached to an environmental problem like waste management too,” he added.
Corporation budget on Feb. 26:
The Greater Chennai Corporation will present its budget on February 26, corporation sources confirmed. The local body’s budget for 2016-17 will also be the final budget presentation made by the Saidai Duraisamy-led AIADMK majority council. The present council’s five-year term ends in October 2016. Though officials are remaining tight-lipped about the budget proposals, informed sources told DC that the finance committee will once again allocate heavy set of funds on road infrastructure. Most of the road infrastructure in the city took a pounding during the December 2015 floods.
The budget outlay is likely to be kept under Rs 4500 crore, officials said, as the corporation is scrambling to finish many incomplete announcements made by Mayor Saidai Duraisamy. The local body will also allocate funds for more new parks and also set aside cash reserve to start games centres, sources added. Storm Water Drains will also receive a fillip in terms of funding this financial year. The corporation is also expected to address the failure to complete Amma theatre and weekly market proposals among other failed Amma-brand announcements of Saidai Duraisamy.
