Dumped in the graveyard

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:  It is a symbolic sight that speaks a million words. The fresh new dumper placers, which are meant to collect and carry garbage, that arrived in the city for a novel purpose, have been shown the ‘graveyard’ by the City Corporation. The vehicles, ordered by the previous Council under the JNNURM project and costing nearly Rs 1.25 crore, have been dumped near the entrance of Santhi Kavadam for weeks now. The present Council is still ‘thinking’ what to do with them.Call it absurdity at its height. The previous Council, that too an LDF-led one, decides on a project and submits a proposal for solid waste management. It gets approved under the JNNURM project and the vehicles (the first batch), one of its components, arrives at the time of another LDF-led Council. The new rulers are, however, not convinced about the work the dumper placers could do and seem afraid of earning criticism.The reasons laid out by the Health officials are bereft of clarity. While an official told City Express that it was because experts had found that the vehicles were unsuitable for the purpose originally envisaged by the Corporation, another official said the bad experience of using the green-coloured garbage containers during the time of former Mayor V Sivankutty (which had earned infamous nicknames) was the reason which has put off the new Council. ‘’It was when the vehicles arrived that we got to know how it looked and its purposes. It would not fit our project. For the time being, they are not being used, but we are seriously thinking of how to put them to best use,’’ said S Pushpalatha, Health Standing Committee Chairperson. When contacted, Mayor K Chandrika said that the delay was only the time lag to clear the registration of the vehicles. The previous Council had zeroed in on the dumper placers as part of a wider project for solid waste management. The project had also envisaged setting up of transfer stations at three points in the city, for which dumper placers could be used. The previous Council had conceived the use of dumper placers to collect garbage from public offices, private institutions and other establishments, including marriage halls. The idea was to collect a fee (nearly Rs 5,000) for removal of garbage from these places, which was, in principle, agreed between the two parties. The Council had then approved the proposal,  which ensured that the Corporation would have no additional expense, but would only bring in a steady income (nearly Rs 44 lakh a month).  It is for this project that dumper placers are now in the city. But the project has faded into oblivion. According to sources, the office-bearers of the previous Council and the present team, including the Mayor and Standing Committee Chairperson,  recently sat across a table and the former enlightened the latter on the details. Though the present Council was bent on rejecting the dumper placers outright, after the meeting it was decided that the next batch of vehicles would be cancelled and those already arrived would be used. But when would the dumper placers get a redemption still remain a puzzle. For the time being, the vehicles are ‘Resting In Peace’.