Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami inaugurated the Solid Waste Management project on Wednesday, which is to be rolled out for seven zones in the city – Valasarawakkam, Alandur, Adyar, Kodambakkam, Perungudi, Sholinganallur and Teynampet – from October.
This new solid waste management system of Greater Chennai Corporation is being rolled out by Urbaser SA and Sumeet Facilities Limited, a Spain-India joint venture.
Mahmood Sait, CEO of Urbeser-Sumeet, has said that the corporation will set up a control room in Alandur and will have separate teams for each zone reported, The Times of India. “Everything will be monitored through a GPS system and zonal teams would monitor the route maps of battery-operated vehicles, trucks and compactor bins,” he added.
This mechanism will segregate waste into wet, hazardous and dry waste, and will be collected by battery vehicles. Notably, there might be penalties for not having segregated waste but the parameters of penalization are yet to be finalized.
According to the press-release about 125 compactors, 38 mechanical sweepers, 3,000 e-rickshaws, and 11,000 compactor trash cans, would be used employing 10,844 people to carry out the work.
This project is particularly significant because waste management in the city has now been privatized with an international company. The company would be monitoring using 36 performance parameters like sweeping of streets, clearing waste bins on time, 100 per cent door to door waste collection and creating awareness. Residents can also register complaints by means of a toll-free number.