The Hindu

• Corporation invites ‘expression of interest’ from bidders 
• At present, the task has been distributed among nine contractors
• The move will help authorities in monitoring the system, say sources

Mangalore, Jul 19: The Mangalore City Corporation has decided to entrust the collection, transportation and disposal of solid waste from its 60 wards to a single agency.

It has invited “expression of interest” to this effect from various agencies. At present, nine contractors are handling the work in as many packages, covering the 60 wards. Their term of contract will expire next month, according to sources in the corporation.

The notification for “expression of interest” dated July 10 states that the successful agency will have to handle the entire task of solid waste management, from collection to production of compost from the waste, at the corporation’s plant at Pachchanady.

The agency will have to dispose of the inert waste such as plastics, metals and glass pieces, at the new sanitary landfill site at Pachchanady. The scope of work also includes street sweeping, vegetation cutting, cleaning of drains medians and footpath, sanitary work of public buildings such as the Town Hall, and operation and maintenance of sanitary landfill site and compost plant.

The notification says that the annual turnover of the bidder should be at least Rs. 50 crore during the past three years and net worth of Rs. 20 crore. The bidder should have experience in handling the solid waste. Public limited companies, NGOs, individuals and registered firms can also bid. Of the present nine contractors, eight are expected to collect solid waste from every house, hotel and other establishments and dump them in the metallic bins kept in each ward. They have to do vegetation cutting and transport the green garbage to the dumping yard at Pachchanady. The ninth contractor transports the metallic bins to Pachchanady yard, dumps wastes and places the bins back in their original spots.

Sources said that door-to-door collection of waste was not happening in all the wards for various reasons, including the failure of contractors to execute this properly and denial by residents to pay users’ fee. The corporation has decided that if this task was given to a single agency, it would be easy to streamline this work and facilitate supervising. In addition, with the setting up of a new compost plant at Pachchanady, the method of disposing of solid waste would change. Involvement of multiple contractors in handling the solid waste was rendering the co-ordination difficult, especially at the disposal stage. Sources said that the corporation could avail itself of the carbon credit under the Kyoto Protocol for reducing pollution by operating such a compost plant.

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement, negotiated in December 1997. In this, the industrialised nations have committed to making substantial reduction in their emissions of greenhouse gases by 2012. The business houses and agencies, which produce green house gases but cannot bring them down, will have to purchase carbon credits allotted to greener projects as a punitive measure.