Despite NGT order, no action on regular garbage collection at Chitlapakkam

CHENNAI: Despite NGT’s order following an article by Express, Chitlapakkam town panchayat, is still lagging behind in regular garbage collection and source segregation. Citing Express’s article dated September 24 and the subsequent articles on non compliance of NGT order to follow Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, the court gave an order- t he town panchayat must implement the Solid Waste Management Rules 2016, by January 31. By the deadline, 100 per cent source segregation apart from regular garbage collection should have been achieved.

However, the residents of Chitlapakkam Panchayat rue that ever since the pandemic began, other civic issues have taken a back seat, mainly garbage collection. “ The trash in the locality is being collected once or twice in a week,” said a resident. About a year ago, five mini vans were rolled out to collect garbage from about 7,000 houses, and the rest were being collected manually on tricycles. 

There was a tender anomaly and the conservancy workers weren’t paid and suddenly the vehicles stopped coming. This issue has been resolved to an extent but garbage collection still remains irregular. “The panchayat had informed that they procured 18 battery vans for collecting waste. However, we see only about eight vehicles on the road.

While the garbage collection was little better after the order, it is now again going back to worse. They only collect it  five days a week,” said Dayanand Krishnan, a residents, adding that the source segregation remains abysmal. Only little is being done both in primary and secondary segregation. The court had also ordered to set up a recovery centre by June 30,2021. Currently, the panchayat is identifying land for the purpose. The local panchayat officials could not be contacted.