The Hindu              01.07.2013

Waste collection to be improved

The way the Coimbatore Corporation conservancy workers and sanitary supervisors handle solid waste will undergo a sea change in the next few days, when the civic body launches the improved waste collection system.

There will be a marked improvement in waste management in another 10 days or so, says Commissioner G. Latha.

At present, the 30-odd sanitary supervisors along with the drivers of the lorries that carry waste are preparing a route map they will pass on to the Assistant Commissioners of the five zones.

After they verify the same, they will place the route maps for the Commissioner's approval.

Under the new system, the Corporation will number each of the 3,400-odd bins in the city.

Along with the bin number, the civic body will also mention the mobile phone number of the sanitary supervisor of the ward concerned and the mobile phone number for grievance redress.

Plus, the bin will also sport the time and frequency of cleaning – daily, twice weekly or once a week.

Ms. Latha says that as and when residents find that bins have not been emptied at the given time, they should first call the sanitary supervisor. And if that does not help, the residents can then message the complaint to the grievance redress system number.

The new waste management system does not end here, though. The Commissioner says that the Corporation has developed android-based mobile application to ensure efficacy in removing and transporting garbage.

The Corporation will give the application-installed android phone to sanitary supervisors, who will have to go to the bin at the scheduled time and day to ensure that it has been cleaned. They will have to use the application to say at what time the bin was cleaned and who the driver was. They will also have to state what the approximate weight was.

The sanitary supervisors' message will go to a server and will be there for the officials to check if the data entered is right or wrong. The Corporation will also cross verify the details at the drivers' end and sanitary inspectors will monitor their movements as the lorries engaged in transporting garbage come fitted with vehicle tracking system.

Ms. Latha says that people on the ground will have to work and they cannot go scot free without working.

Deputy Commissioner S. Sivarasu says that android application has crossed the testing stage and software engineers engaged in the task will upload the application onto the phones in the next couple of days.

The Hindu             20.06.2013

Warangal model for solid waste management

Staff Reporter

The Coimbatore Corporation is impressed with the way the Warrangal Municipality had gone about implementing the solid waste management programme, said Mayor S.M. Velusamy and Commissioner G. Latha at a meeting held in the city on Tuesday.

The Residents Awareness Association of Coimbatore (RAAC) and a few civic organisations had arranged for the meeting.

The city had lessons to learn from the practise there.

It also needed to know the changes required in law for the successful implementation of the programme — for, the Municipality in Andhra Pradesh had put in place a system where the wealth generated by segregated and selling the waste was shared among the conservancy workers.

Proceeds

Ms. Latha said that for distribution of the proceeds from sale of waste, the Coimbatore Corporation required laws, for which it would have to seek the help of the State Government.

But the civic body was very much interested in adopting the model because there were issues in solid waste management in the city.

Explaining the features of the waste management system in Warrangal, M. Muthu Kumar of Clean Cities Championship, an NGO, said that the organisation with support from the Municipal officials and the Andhra Pradesh Government took into confidence the conservancy workers, sought their feed back and then trained them on waste collection and management.

Through the workers it informed the residents that they would have to segregate the waste or else pay penalty.

It also devised an incentive system wherein for efficient waste collection the households and conservancy workers were rewarded.

The workers then segregated the wastes, took out paper, plastics and other wastes that could be recycled.

They sold the same and the money they made was pooled in and used for their common good.

Mr. Velusamy said that the Corporation with support from ICLEI, an NGO, was engaged in the process of introducing door-to-door collection in Ward 23.

It would extend the same to other wards as part of the Shunya or Zero Waste Management project.