The Indian Express   06.08.2012

Centre’s new emission norms could stall civic body’s plans

Despite the civic administration’s assurances that the garbage collection crisis in the city has been nearly resolved, the central government mandate to adopt the Euro IV vehicle emission norms could upset the civic body’s plans.

Sources said the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways’ decision on implementing the Bharat Stage IV (Euro IV) emission norms in 13 major cities since April 2010 has put the brakes on important acquisitions by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)’s solid waste management department. As per the new norms, Mumbai will have to use vehicles that are BS-IV compliant. So, although crippled by severe shortage of garbage collection compactors, the civic administration is unable to fill the gap due to vehicle manufacturing companies’ unwillingness to manufacture Euro-IV compliant vehicles.

Civic officials said waste disposal work is currently performed using compactor trucks that are four-six years old. These old vehicles cannot be immediately replaced owing to a government order that mandates use of Euro IV chassis compactors only. The new generation vehicles will hit the market only in June 2013.

The BMC that now has a fleet of 650 garbage collection vehicles is facing a crippling shortage of over 300 compactors used for garbage collection.

While the civic administration has replaced the shortage temporarily by dumpers and JCB trucks, officials admit that they lack efficiency. “These dumpers are not ideal for lifting garbage unlike compactors that can easily lift piles of garbage and also have room for accommodating six workmen to do the garbage collection at various points,” said an official.

 Although the BMC claims that it is working on alternative solutions to solve garbage collection problems in the city, the crucial demand for upgraded new compactors to efficiently collect garbage will only be fulfilled by next year.

Additional Municipal Commissioner Mohan Adtani said, “The High Court has finally directed both the vehicle manufacturing companies registered with BMC to provide us with Euro IV compliant compactors. This will take another year, during which time we will have to augment the shortage by using dumpers.”