The Hindu            06.11.2014  

Waste management scheme: documents missing

Karthik Madhavan

The tender document and papers related to the solid waste management scheme, executed on behalf of the Coimbatore Corporation by the Coimbatore Integrated Waste Management Private Limited, are missing.

During a thorough review of the scheme, the Corporation officials learnt to their dismay that the tender document, based on which the civic body inked the agreement with the company was missing.

This was immediately brought to the notice of senior officials who reportedly were contemplating the next course of action, including lodging a police complaint.

Sources said that a thorough probe by the police might bring to light the involvement of insiders – Corporation staff – who, the officials suspect could have taken away the documents.

Only a few days ago, the Coimbatore Corporation learnt that the company had not fulfilled its bank guarantee and soon thereafter Commissioner S. Ganesh had issued notice to the company. He had also issued notice for poor performance in the Vellalore dump yard in that the company was not producing compost in the quantity it ought to produce by processing wet waste.

The Corporation had inked an agreement more than five years ago for over Rs. 100 crore with the company for transporting waste from transit stations to the Vellalore dump yard and processing the waste there.

The task of collecting waste from the streets and taking them to the transit stations - primary collection – was with the Corporation.

On an average, the Coimbatore Corporation collected and sent over 800 tonnes of waste a day to the dump yard. The company was supposed to segregate the waste into degradable, non-degradable and rejects and make compost the degradable waste, recycle the non-degradable waste and use in landfill the rejects.

The allegation against the company was that it was not segregating and processing the waste as agreed and just dumped the waste as it received. Residents of Vellalore, Mahalingapuram and other areas near the dump yard have been accusing the Corporation of not carrying out the waste management in a transparent manner.