The Chennai Corporation Council on Wednesday approved the proposal for gradual privatisation of conservancy operations in all zones of the city.
Conservancy operations in zones such as Teynampet, Kodambakkam, Adyar and parts of Ambattur have already been privatised. As part of the efforts of the Chennai Corporation to shortlist suitable technology for remediation and scientific closure of the Perungudi and Kodungaiyur dump yards, the civic body also sought privatisation of conservancy operations in all the 15 zones. The action was initiated a few months ago in the wake of the National Green Tribunal setting aside the environmental clearance granted by the Tamil Nadu government to the integrated solid waste management facility at Perungudi.
Apart from the initiative of reversing the environmental damage in Perungudi and Kodungaiyur, the civic body had invited expression of interest for two more solid waste management initiatives from multinational companies. This included the design of a scalable and modular plant with a future capacity of processing 10,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste per day.
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The scope of work in privatisation of conservancy operations covers street cleaning and door-to-door collection of garbage. All the three initiatives were proposed to be in the public-private partnership mode.
The pieces of lands identified in Kuthambakkam, Malaiapattu and Minjur are likely to be used for the solid waste management initiatives. 31 companies had initially expressed interest to participate in three tenders floated by the Chennai Corporation in March and 18 were shortlisted. The private conservancy operators in charge of other zones will be identified after a few weeks.