March 31, 2014
CHENNAI: When he took charge as mayor on October 25, 2011, Saidai S Duraisamy said he would make Chennai spick and spanking clean like Singapore.
The Chennai Corporation has allowed garbage clearance and sanitation to go from bad to worse.
March 31, 2014
CHENNAI: When he took charge as mayor on October 25, 2011, Saidai S Duraisamy said he would make Chennai spick and spanking clean like Singapore.
The Chennai Corporation has allowed garbage clearance and sanitation to go from bad to worse.
Singapore? A desultory walk through any part of the city will reveal that the city is farther away from the Southeast Asian city-state than ever before.
The corporation has allowed garbage clearance and sanitation to go from bad to worse, while claiming to spend crores of rupees for the purpose, and has failed to take action against people who litter the streets or urinate and defecate in public.
Statistics from the civic body show that officials have either not fined anyone or penalised a handful of offenders across the city's 15 zones.
Only five of the 15 zones — Alandur, Manali, Madhavaram, Perungudi and Sholinganallur — responded to an RTI petition seeking data on steps taken to keep the city clean. Officials from Alandur and Manali admitted that they have not booked anyone in the last two years.
Perungudi zone collected a paltry Rs 5,000 in fine for littering over the past two years and Sholinganallur, Rs 8,000.
In contrast, several other metros have in recent times stringently enforced rules against people caught littering. Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, for instance, has started taking steps such as offering offenders the choice of paying a fine or doing community service, like sweeping streets or whitewashing graffiti. It collects an average of Rs 1 crore each year for spitting in public.
Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike is installing surveillance cameras across Bangalore to catch civic offenders in the act. It has also aggressively promoted source segregation of garbage. Youth action groups like Wake Up Clean Up, Make a Difference, TGLM and The Ugly Indian also help keep Bangalore clean.
In Chennai, corporation officials say, inspectors who should be enforcing the rules have been deployed to monitor Amma canteens. They also say they're busy with efforts to prevent mosquitoes and rodents from breeding, a task at which they have proved unsuccessful.
In The Times Of India-IMRB Quality Of Life Survey, it came as little surprise when respondents said Chennai lacks civic sense. They gave the city a rating of 2 on a scale of 1 to 5 for sanitation and ranked it seventh on a list of the eight cleanest metros in the country.
An ex-bureaucrat says the civic body has failed to enforce rules. "How well rules are enforced depends on how earnest officials are. Unfortunately, they are concerned about other things," he said. "Corporation officials and residents lack civic sense," said environmentalist Dharmesh Shah.
"The officials should first caution people against throwing garbage on the road and then fine them if they persist."
Corporation deputy commissioner (health) T Anand was unavailable for comment.
Courtesy: TNN
