Many councillors in the Mangaluru City Corporation on Friday opposed a move by the civic body to distribute two bins to all houses and other establishments in 60 wards to store segregated waste.
They wanted to know from the Mayor and officials why a pilot project under which bins were provided to Mannagudda and Court wards in 2011-12 and 2012-13, respectively, to store segregated waste, had failed. But there was no convincing reply either from the officials or the Mayor.
The councillors asked how the new move could be a success, if the pilot project could not take off properly. The councillors wanted to know why there was no follow-up of the pilot project.
A.C. Vinayaraj, councillor, Court ward, said that it was not wise to distribute bins to all wards.
Instead, they could be distributed by identifying select zones first.
The corporation could go ahead after observing whether it was a success.
Earlier, Mayor Harinath told the council that the corporation would collect segregated waste (dry and wet) from houses and commercial establishments shortly. Its launch would be made known to people.
The corporation would take up awareness and educative programmes before launching the drive.
The Mayor said that the civic body has planned to procure bins priced Rs. 1.96 crore in the first phase. It had invited bids. The bins procured in the first phase would be distributed to the people.
But the councillors said that under the agreement between the civic body and Antony Waste Handling Cell Pvt. Ltd., which is collecting garbage and transporting it to the compost plant in the city, the company was bound to collect segregated waste from people.
But the company was not doing it even after awarding the contract to it more than a year ago.
It did not have any arrangement to transport dry waste. If the segregated waste collected by people was mixed and transported obviously, how the corporation can expect the new move to become a success, they said.
The former Deputy Mayor Rajendra alleged that the company was not ensuring cleanliness on main roads and interior roads. Later, the Mayor told The Hindu that the civic body would go ahead with its new move. A decision would be taken shortly whether to distribute bins to Court and Mannagudda wards or not after assessing the status of bins already distributed.
