70% houses covered: official

Moving to source segregation of garbage, Vellore Corporation has commenced door-to-door collection of waste across the city. According to officials, 70% of the nearly 1.20 lakh households in the city are now covered under the new collection method.

For nearly a century, garbage collected from Vellore was being dumped in 7.89 acre yard at Sadupperi that evoked protests from residents since 2015.

From February 1, the Corporation stopped the practice following an order from the National Green Tribunal in November 2016.

It started to put in place micro compost centres across the city where garbage was segregated as biodegradable and non-biodegradable.

Here, composting of biodegradable waste was taken up, while non-biodegrable waste was recycled. There are 42 micro compost centres in the city.

In the last few weeks, the Corporation started to remove garbage bins from various places. “We have removed nearly 100 garbage bins from the city. We have reached 70% coverage of households. We hope that this initiative will go full-fledged in a month,” he said.

He added that several residents were segregating the waste and handing it to sanitary workers.

However, this solid waste management effort has its own challenges. “Though we are ensuring 100% door-to-door collection, people continue to dump waste at the earlier littering points and on the road. We have deputed a team of workers to take up door-to-door canvassing. If a resident is going out, they can keep the garbage outside their houses so that our workers can collect it. We need the cooperation of residents,” he added.

Daily collection of garbage will be taken up during a specified time of the day such as 7 a.m. to 10 a.m., with each street having a fixed timing, he said.

“We are looking at increasing the number of sanitary workers in the coming months. At present, there are nearly 800 sanitary workers, and we might increase it by another 200. Each of the four zones will get 50 more workers,” he mentioned.