Mangalore: Solid waste management in Mangalore city is in for an overhaul, as a Mumbai-based company is all set to take up door-to-door collection of garbage and look after transportation, street sweeping, divider cleaning, vegetation cutting and other sanitation work from come december, for seven years.
In a recent meeting held at the Mangalore City Corporation between the Mayor Mahabala Marla and Jose Jacob, managing director of Antony Waste Handling Cell Private Limited along with the Commissioner in-charge Gokul Das Nayak, Health Officer Dr Manjaiah Shetty and senior corporators from Mangalore City Corporation Haridas Salian and Jason Paul the agreement was signed and exchanged.
More than one-and-half years after the State government selected Antony Waste Handling Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai, for this job, the city corporation and the company signed the agreement.
With the initiation. the city will put an end to the system of awarding solid waste management contracts to multiple contractors. Now, nine contractors have been entrusted with sanitary works under nine packages. Of this, one contractor only transports garbage collected from 60 wards to the corporation’s compost plant at Pachchanady.
The corporation, though will be now spending more money after the company takes charge of waste management. They have justified it by saying that “better service comes at a price”.
In the present case the corporation spends about Rs.11 crore annually for waste management in the 60 wards, under the new system, official sources said that the Mumbai-based company – named Anthony Waste Management has quoted Rs. 7.95 crore per annum for waste management in the north zone (29 wards) and Rs. 9.67 crore per annum for the south zone (31 wards). This will be a two package system – segregation and collection and transportation to Pachanady.
As per the contract, the company is required to use hydraulic vehicles for all activity, from door-to-door collection up to transportation to the compost plant. The vehicles should also be fitted with GPS equipment. Included in the contract is the maintenance of cleanliness of three beaches, which involves additional expenditure.
Officials in-charge of solid waste management in the civic body have high hopes that the new system will help stabilise door-to-door collection of garbage in all wards and slowly help make Mangalore a garbage bin-free city. The new system will help the corporation to have a grip over the entire solid waste system as there will be only one contractor who would be accountable.
Also read Newskarnataka.com’s earlier exclusive story in this regard here: Coastal city to be the next garbage city?
