Politicos are adept at materialising muck from thin air to be slung at their opponents. With Chennai’s garbage woes overflowing, not just metaphorically but literally too, the opposition here have their hands full without recourse to a magic wand. And unfortunately for the rulers, the mud is sticking. But politicisation of the city’s garbage clearance issue is the least of the problems for its denizens, for politics here has always belonged to the dustbin. The real problem, is, er, well, shortage of dustbins!
It was the DMK government of Y2K vintage that first brought in the practice of outsourcing of garbage clearance. The seven-year contract with Onyx, a Singapore-based company, ended ten days back and that instant, all stink broke loose. Onyx quit the streets at the appointed hour and the new contractor, Neel Metal Products Fanalca of South America, took its time stepping into them. But the city’s garbage generating machines, called households, couldn’t pause, obviously, and and are pouring tons out on the streets. Molehills are becoming mounds and mounds are turning into mountains. The Goverment claims the garbage is being cleared now, but the streets tell a different tale. Really, next to negotiating potholes, driving through valleys of these heaps is currently the popular adventure sport in town.
Now to some finger-pointing. As we said there is a lot happening. The opposition have been quick on their feet. J and V instructed their respective partymen to do the garbage clearing job themselves. The foot soldiers promptly descended on the streets, adding a good amount of verbal stink to the obnoxious stuff lying around everywhere. Presto, the cops cleared them in a jiffy …the agitators, I mean, not the garbage. Of course, later they did that too, men in crisp uniforms casting their lathis and rifles away, and wielding brooms and baskets instead. This even warmed the hearts of the CM so much that he actually took time off from the all-important countdown to the launch of Kalaignar TV and patted the police for restoring law, order & cleanliness, in that order, to the city. But forget the garbage clearing competition between cops and cadres, where the hell was our elected Corporation vested with the job of keeping the city clean? One has to search at the bottom of the heap, really!
When the civic body first outsourced garbage clearance, it was by no means ridding itself of that responsibility. In fact, there are those who raise legitimate objections to the very wisdom of outsourcing, for conservency work is the prime duty of a city Corporation and minus that it has no reason to exist. But we will skip the debate. When crisis struck, the C of C quickly blamed the new contractor for not anticipating the trouble. The new contractor, while admitting to some lapses on his part, blamed Onyx for not clearing the backlog of garbage that rightfully belonged to it. Onyx refuted this, but agreed to the request of the officials to chip in with some help as a ‘goodwill’ gesture. Two things are apparent through all this: First, the civic body itself does not want its hand to become dirty at all, preferring instead to pose like an indifferent arbiter. Second, it has bungled in both the evaluation of the capabilities of the new contractor and ensuring a seamless transfer of work. The politicos lording over civic admin would rather conserve their energies to be either expended in council meetings or for rigging polls!
Garbage mounds are a permanent part of Chennai’s landscape but the magnitude of the current crisis is a grim pointer to a future urban environmental catastrophe. While there are dime a dozen wasteful policies like free TV schemes etc, there does not seem to be a coherent waste disposal policy in place. There is no dearth of data or recommendations. The CMDA’s second master plan itself offers copious advice on waste management. By 2025, the Chennai Metropolitan Area is expected to generate over 6500 tonnes of waste daily, up from the current 3000 tonnes of waste from 10 Corporation Zones. And the problem of clearing this pales in comparison to the task of disposing it off. As residents, we just put our garbage cans outside our doors and forget about them. But, presently, much of that collected waste get dumped in turn in uninhabited land or lakes, ponds or tanks. And this sullies as well as chokes only the groundwater that ultimately quenches our thirst.
The dumping grounds themselves become wonderful launching pads for mosquitoes and epidemics. While there are scientific methods of waste disposal they have either been shackled by red-tape or confined to political platforms and seminar halls. Barring a few exceptions, that too only through private initiatives of organisations like Exnora, little light is visible on the official horizon. Action has always fallen short of tall talk. The raging garbage war is proof of the pudding.
All this does not, of course, absolve the people. While things are not as bad as it used to be, say a decade back, a resident still has to travel quite a distance for a clean Chennai. And just as for our rulers, we too do not have to look far for enlightenment on the subject. A toddler or his or her text book on ‘Environment Science’ would tell us what we must, and importantly, must not do. Like charity, cleanliness too begins at home. And we can begin by segregating our waste at source. We then earn our right to point fingers at those who forgot to pick it up from there!
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