The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Mayor expresses anguish over poor waste management

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 27, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Mayor expresses anguish over poor waste management

By K.V. Prasad

COIMBATORE, OCT. 26. Discontent among Councillors over garbage disposal in the city found expression in an open castigation of officials by the Mayor, T. Malaravan, at an all-party meeting in the Coimbatore Corporation today.

Expressing anguish over "shoddy" disposal and heaps of garbage persisting across the city, the Mayor even declared that he might be forced to stage a dharna against the health officials of the civic body if there was no improvement in the situation.

The meeting was convened to discuss various development issues and also the probe into the alleged irregularities in pricing of streetlight accessories.

Councillors who took part in the meeting said that when the issue of solid waste management was taken up for discussion, the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, A.T. Rajan, complained of poor disposal of waste.

Poor hygiene

The other Councillors joined him in blaming poor hygiene in the city on the health department of the civic body. The Mayor then sought an explanation from the officials. Not happy with the reply he got, the Mayor accused them of not carrying out even the roll call (of sanitary workers) at the ward offices. When this was the case, how could one expect prompt disposal of garbage, he asked.

According to some Councillors, the Corporation frantically looked for a solution to end the garbage menace. The elected members said they were not happy with the functioning of the private firm that had been given a test project for converting waste into manure at the compost yard in Vellalore.

Under pressure

Sources in the civic body said the Corporation was under immense pressure to implement a solid waste management programme to rid the city of ubiquitous waste heaps. With the Government also having laid stress on waste management in panchayats, they said that the Corporation was expected to set an example.

They pointed out that with the waste-to-wealth (converting into manure) test programme hardly convincing and the landfill option proving to be inadequate for total disposal, garbage heaps persisting along the roads in the city came as no surprise.

The Councillors also wanted to know how far the committee formed by the Mayor for evolving a waste management programme had progressed. Stating that the situation in the city hardly reflected any such effort, they called upon the Mayor for measures to have a project in place soon.

The Mayor also warned officials of stringent action if complaints from the public, of poor garbage disposal, were not attended to promptly. He even warned the officials that he would be forced to move a resolution in the Council to condemn any laxity on their part.

Streetlight issue

The meet also discussed the progress of the probe into alleged overpricing of streetlight accessories. Leaders of the parties in the Council wanted to know whether the Mayor had kept his promise of a high-level probe, on a demand made by the Opposition parties. (At the Council meeting in September, R. Devaraj of the Communist Party of India demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry.)

When the Mayor said that a request to the Government for a high-level inquiry was yet to be made, C. Padmanabhan of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) wanted to know why the files had not been sent to higher authorities in Chennai.

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Mayor expresses anguish over poor waste management