Garbage movement costs civic body dear

Kochi corpn incurs additional burden of ₹1.50 crore

A health worker of the Kochi Corporation dumping domestic waste into a carriage taking refuse to the solid waste treatment plant at Brahmapuram.

The Kochi Corporation may have incurred additional burden to the tune of around ₹1.50 crore in waste movement during the last one-and-a-half years.

This was revealed at the corporation council meeting here on Saturday after corporation secretary A.S. Anuja, on the direction of Mayor Soumini Jain, presented details of transportation of waste to the solid waste disposal treatment plant of the corporation at Brahmapuram.

While the Opposition councillors clamoured for a vigilance probe, Ms. Jain said the Local Self Government Department (LSGD) Secretary would be urged to conduct a probe.

Limiting the details to the five-month period from December to April, the secretary said that the corporation had to cough up an additional ₹65 lakh for garbage movement. In 2016-17, the corporation spent ₹1.53 crore for removing 33,820 tonnes of garbage, while it had to shell out ₹2.27 crore to clear 36,904 tonnes of waste in 2017-18.

However, the Opposition councillors went on an overdrive, alleging that going by the rate, the burden runs up to around ₹1.50 crore, which was not denied by the ruling benches. The additional burden has been attributed to the new arrangement of fixing per tone rate for the movement of garbage as against the previous system of rate per truckload.

Ms. Jain called for details of garbage movement following widespread allegations that the new norms for waste movement had cost the corporation’s exchequer dear. Deputy Mayor T.J. Vinod said that since the new norms had been found detrimental to the corporation, the council might consider reverting to the old arrangement of fixing rate per truckload.

Earlier, councillors, cutting across political affiliations, made a scathing attack on corporation officials for their alleged irresponsibility, citing recent reports on the civic body’s “failure” in various sectors. At the heart of the attack was officials’ failure to stop an unauthorised construction on a prime plot near boat jetty. Apart from serving a perfunctory stop memo, officials did nothing to prevent the construction, they alleged. Holding that the demolition of the building was unfeasible, the Mayor asked officials to withhold the issue of mandatory licences.

Ms. Jain also came down heavily on officials for serious oversight on their part on a slew of key issues including illegal road cutting by private telecom companies. She further said that the LSGD Secretary would be informed in writing recommending action against officials who had failed in their duty.