The Hindu      09.09.2014 

Garbage piles up as strike by conservancy workers continues

Garbage piled up in Chinna Pudur in Ward 13 in Salem on Monday.-PHOTO:P.GOUTHAM.

: With the strike by conservancy workers, engaged by a private contractor for solid waste management work in 21 wards of the City Municipal Corporation, entering the eighth day on Monday, there is growing concern among the residents regarding the piling up of garbage in residential areas.

About 680 contractor workers had begun an indefinite strike from September 1 demanding that they should be paid Rs. 15,000 as monthly salary and job permanency. Talks with Corporation officials and Labour department failed to yield any results and they continued their strike. Most of the 21 wards are located in Kondalampatti and Ammapet Zone and about 100 tonnes of municipal solid waste is being generated everyday.

Overflowing bins and garbage dumped on roads were common scenes in many of the residential areas. Residents were also dealing with the bad odour due to the improper disposal of waste.

“ We were forced to dump garbage on the road as the two bins were full. It has been not cleared for the past 10 days” , residents in Chinna Pudur said. They complained of bad odour and many were concerned about the possible threat to health and spread of diseases due to piling of garbage. “ Before any health issue arises, the garbage should be cleared” , they added. Though the civic body cleared bins that were placed on the main roads, streets in the interior areas were left untouched.

Corporation Commissioner S.R. Selvaraj told The Hindu that additional bins were placed in these wards to clear the garbage. He said that desilting works and door-to-door collection of garbage was completely affected in the past one week.

Though the Corporation claims that garbage was cleared regularly, most of the bins in streets of Ammapet were overflowing with garbage. “Garbage on roads can causes serious problems in traffic movement” , residents in many of the wards said. Of the total 60 wards in the Corporation limits, the civic body maintains solid waste management in 39 wards while the rest of the 21 wards are under the maintenance of a private contractor.

The Hindu       09.09.2014   

Property tax for vacant lands in Chennai

Owners of vacant lands in Chennai city will have to pay property tax similar to the residents of municipalities in other parts of the State.

To augment its revenue, the Chennai Corporation has planned to levy property tax on vacant lands on area basis. The civic body’s Town Planning Section will grant building approval only after the property tax assessment and payment for the vacant lands are made by the owner concerned. Municipalities that were merged with the Chennai Corporation had been collecting the tax for vacant land following a government order in 2009. After the merger, the tax was not collected by the corporation. The councils of Town Panchayats, Third Grade Municipalities and Municipalities that were merged were also empowered to fix the rate of property tax on vacant lands that were not used for agricultural purposes. The maximum rate per square foot in a local body was fixed at 60 paise. The minimum rate was 10 paise, said an official.