With council approving the decision, tenders will be floated soon.

The Vellore Corporation has decided to privatise solid waste management in the corporation area.

A
resolution to this effect was passed at the monthly meeting of the
Vellore Corporation Council here on Friday. The decision to privatise
SWM was taken after the addition of two municipalities, six town
panchayats and nine village panchayats pushing up the number of wards in
the Corporation to 60. After the expansion, the Corporation area has
increased from 11.65 sq.km to 87.92 sq.km.

“With the
Corporation Council passing the resolution approving privatisation of
SWM, tenders will soon be called from private agencies to undertake the
SWM works,” said Priyamvadha, City Health Officer, Vellore.

While
the Corporation generated garbage of 200 tonnes per day as per the 2011
population, the existing garbage vehicles were able to remove only 150
tonnes. The Commissioner of Municipal Administration, Chennai, has in
December 2012, approved the Corporation’s proposal to entrust the 715
sanitary workers posts to a private agency.

Model for SWM

The
Corporation has decided to make Zone-1 comprising 15 wards in the
extension areas of Gandhinagar, Kazhinjur, Virudhambut, Tharapadavedu,
Katpadi and Kangeyanallur, as a model for the implementation of SWM
project, in pursuance to the direction of the CMA who has asked the
Corporation to select a zone for establishing an SWM model. An SWM
project is already in place in Gandhinagar, where the office of the
erstwhile town panchayat houses a compost yard, and garbage is being
regularly collected through carts from the houses and business premises.
A similar system is also in place in Kazhinjur. Four places have been
identified in Zone 1 for undertaking the work of segregation of wastes
and composting the garbage. The existing infrastructure in Katpadi,
Gandhinagar, Kazhinjur and Pallikuppam would be modified.

While
the Corporation already had six refuse collectors and seven dumper
placers, it has placed orders for six more dumper placers and four more
refuse collectors for undertaking the garbage collection, removal and
dumping work. The model SWM would be ready by April 10, Ms. Priyamvadha
said.

Sanitary workers

Meanwhile,
the 715 posts of sanitary workers are to be entrusted to the private
agency to be selected through tenders. The Corporation would be
incurring a sum of Rs. 56.76 lakh per month (Rs. 7.17 crore per annum)
on the sanitary workers. This comprised their daily wage at the rate of
Rs. 208 per head per day (a total of Rs. 44.61 lakh per month),
Employees Provident Fund (Rs. 5.35 lakh), administrative expenses (Rs.
66,924), service charges (Rs. 5.51 lakh), LIC premium (Rs. 71,500), ESI
and other benefits (Rs. 2.90 lakh). The Corporation proposed to meet the
expenditure from the general funds till a private agency is selected,
officials said.

While the Corporation required 576
sanitary workers for undertaking sanitary work in the 48 wards in the
upgraded Vellore Corporation before the annexation of neighbouring
municipalities, and town and village panchayats, it had only 381
sanitary workers. The shortage of 195 workers was met by enlisting the
services of 190 workers from women’s self-help groups (SHGs) on contract
basis.

The addition of extension areas comprising
two municipalities (Tharapadavedu and Sathuvachari), six town panchayats
(Gandhinagar, Kazhinjur, Katpadi, Shenbakkam, Allapuram and Thorapadi)
and nine village panchayats (Konavattam, Viruppakshipuram,
Alamelumangapuram, Virudhambut, Kangeyanallur, Palavansathu,
Idayansathu, Ariyur and Chitheri), has necessitatedemployment of 270
more SHG workers for sanitary work on contract basis.

The
upgradation of the Corporation and the functioning of the local body as
an integrated Corporation after the extension of new areas with effect
from October 25, 2011 had increased the requirement of sanitary workers
to 1,450, whereas the Corporation had only 559 workers, leaving a
shortage of 891 workers. The Corporation engaged 460 SHG workers at the
rate of 10 each from 46 SHGs on contract basis to undertake the
additional work in all the four zones, and their contract would be
ending on various days this year, the last being October 2, 2013.