In the northern parts of R.S. Puram that come under Ward 23 of the Coimbatore Corporation, Mayor S.M. Velusamy, councillors and officials launched the zero waste management project, Shunya, on October 2.
They distributed bags and bins to residents so that they could segregate wet and dry waste and handover the same to the Corporation’s conservancy workers, who would sell the dry wasteand carry the wet waste to be processed into compost. A week later, the ground situation appears to be different. Or that is what the residents convey.
Chitra P.L., a resident says, the Corporation officials gave her a bag and bin a few days ago, while she was taking a morning walk. After explaining what dry and wet wastes were they asked her to segregate the wastes so that the Corporation’s conservancy workers in the ward could collect the wastes in two bins. But that has not happened, she said.
“The workers did not turn up since then. The segregated wastes got accumulated at home. Not knowing what to do, she had to dump the two together at the Corporation’s bin on the street.”
For Muthu S., another resident, the Corporation is yet to give the bag and bin. It has not yet informed her that she has to segregate the waste.
The absence of workers to collect the waste in segregated fashion and lack of information seem to negate the very purpose of the Shunya project, which the Corporation launched with much fanfare.
The project holds the key to successful implementation of the Rs. 100 crore solid waste management project as it targets segregation of waste at source. To Corporation chose Ward 23 as the pilot ward to launch the project.
Prior to the implementation of the project, the officials said they had trained workers to collect segregated waste and taken on board, non-government organisations, residents’ welfare organisations, etc.
The Corporation also said that it had received Rs. 85 lakh from AIFORIA, a Germany-based funding agency.
The money the Corporation received and the training it had provided to workers were proving to be beneficial in that the Sunya project was going as planned, Ward 23 Councillor S. Manimeghalai said in Corporation’s defence.
At the start of the project, the officials and she had covered Bashyakaralu Road, Periasamy Road and Venkatasamy Road by distributing the bags and bins. As of Friday, they had distributed bags and bins to 2,215 residents of the aforementioned streets.
After distributing the bins, officials, including the sanitary inspector and sanitary supervisor, and she were following up with the residents by checking if they had segregated the waste.
Once they perfected the system in the three streets, the officials and she would move to cover the other streets. Corporation officials said the conservancy workers collected the segregated wastes in two bins and did not mix them up.