The Hindu 18.07.2009

Corporation decides to have exclusive wing for waste management

Special Correspondent

COIMBATORE: The Coimbatore Corporation will have a special team to implement solid waste management in the city and appoint more engineers for the Basic Services for the Urban Poor project, under which houses will be built for slum-dwellers. A resolution to this effect was adopted at an emergency meeting of the Corporation Council on Tuesday.

This followed a demand from councillors that the Corporation should have a special wing to implement the Rs.96 crore solid waste management scheme. And, there must be enough engineers and other staff members for all the schemes planned under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, councillors of the Corporation said at an emergency meeting on Tuesday to adopt a resolution on new posts sanctioned and salaries fixed for these.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) member C. Padmanabhan asserted that there must an exclusive wing of engineers to carry out the waste management project. Referring to details provided in the resolution, he said only 30 of the 52 sanctioned posts for the JNNURM wing had been filled.

The CPI (M) member pointed this out when a reference was made on the Government sanctioning eight more posts to the JNNURM wing, namely Information Technology Officer, Municipal Finance Officer, Public Health Engineer, Social and Community Development Officer, Procurement Officer, Environmental Officer and Human Resource Development Officer.

The tenure of these posts was only three years. The total salary for all three years would be Rs.58.50 crore. The Central Government would provide 100 per cent of the first year’s salary (Rs.26 lakh). It would provide 75 per cent in the second year (Rs.19.50 lakh) and 50 per cent (Rs.13 lakh) in the third year. The balance amount would be paid by the local body.

Appreciating the move to create new posts, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam member P. Rajkumar, however, said that more junior engineers were needed to carry out the houses for the urban poor project. “At present the available engineers are being diverted to this project and this affects routine work. At least five junior engineers must be appointed in each of the four zones as the Corporation will have to implement the underground drainage scheme also,” he said.

Mr. Padmanabhan said only one engineer was handling waste management now. This was way below the requirement.

“We do not seem to have made an assessment of the requirement.

We can request the Government for more posts for JNNURM,” he said.

The resolution to have an exclusive team of engineers for waste management and more engineers for the BSUP scheme was passed after the discussions.