With 11 days to ago for the Central Government’s move to usher in
segregated waste collection across the country, the Coimbatore
Corporation, it appears, is facing a number of challenges.

The
Central Government had said that starting June 5, World Environment Day,
local bodies across the country should go in for collecting waste in
segregated fashion – wet, degradable waste in a bin, and dry, recyclable
waste in another bin.

The Government had also suggested that the
local bodies give bins to households and paint its roadside bins blue
and green while collecting waste in segregated fashion. Following the
Government’s suggestion, the Corporation set up a team to identify what
it should do to implement the segregated waste collection – both in
terms of men and material.

The team in turn asked the five zonal conservancy officers to assess and report the field-level requirements.

Rough
data from the ground suggests that the Corporation requires 500 push
carts, 50 autorickshaw-type vehicles to carry waste, 1,000 roadside bins
and nearly five lakh plastic bins to be given to households and 500
conservancy workers.

Currently, the Corporation has 4,800
conservancy workers, including 2,300 contract workers, 1,500 roadside
bins and 1,500 push carts.

Sources
familiar with the developments say that the Corporation is yet to take a
call on this as senior officials have indicated that purchase of new
bins or push carts depends on the money in the coffers. And, in all
probability, the Corporation may do away with giving bins to households.

As
for training workers, the Corporation has already completed the task a
few days ago. But it is recruiting new workers to meet the shortfall,
then it has to train them. And, it has to do so quick because there is
very little time left.

The sources say that the Corporation has
engaged office bearers of residents’ welfare associations, apartments
and gated communities on segregated collection through zonal assistant
commissioners and conservancy officers.

But it appears that the civic body is yet to reach out to all residents welfare associations and apartments.

Likewise,
the Corporation is yet to complete repainting the bins blue and green
and repairing damaged bins. If this is not complete, segregated waste
collection will take a hit.

The intensive communication campaign
the Corporation has planned to educate residents is also yet to take
off, the source say and add that if the civic body fails to pull up its
socks, the Government’s efforts will not succeed, they add.