Heavier fines on cattle menace

Including the added areas, the city’s cattle population has been found to exceed one lakh, officials said. At present, the civic body collected a penalty of Rs 1550 from erring cattle owners after impounding the animal.

The corporation’s statistics showed that as many as 1,915 cows were impounded during 2014-15 which meant collection of Rs 29.68 lakh in fines. However, nonchalant owners commit the violation again after securing the animals’ release.

Not helping the civic body is the fact that it maintains open bins and with garbage strewn around, it serves to attract hungry cattle.

“We are impounding more than 500 cattle, including buffaloes and milch cows, every month from the streets of Chennai. But the action of cattle owners is simply not understandable. Going forward, levying heftier fines seems to be one way of getting the message across,” a senior official said.

While penalty is only one aspect, officials said that their field workers faced resistance from influential cattle owners, who flaunted political influence, and obstructed the civic body from carrying out its work.

“Recently, one of our field officer was roughed up by a cattle owner who is the relative of a politician. The issue had to be played down but the fact is that this is the reality,” said an official.

Impounded cattle, which is taken to one of the shelters at Pudupet or Perambur, is handed over to the Blue Cross of India (BCI) if nobody claims ownership in a month. Once handed over, the BCI doesn’t, under any circumstance, return the cattle to its owner.

Dawn Williams, general manager of BCI, said the corporation could book cases under Section 289 IPC and charge cattle owners for negligent conduct, something that the civic body presently was not committed to doing.

“The condition of the impounded cattle is pathetic. Already, these owners inject the milch cows with copious amounts of oxytocin hormones to produce milk. These cows feed on garbage and plastic and it doesn’t survive for long by the time it reaches our care,” Williams said.

In 2012, the civic body had announced its intention to privatise garbage collection in all 15 of its zones, a move which, two years later, had to be renounced after pressure from its employees. This eventually forced the corporation to declare that only four zones – Valasaravakkam , Alandur, Perungudi and Sholinganallur were under consideration for the project.

Currently, Ramky Enviro Ltd is responsible for garbage clearance in Teynampet, Kodambakkam and Adyar zones.After calling for bids in August 2014, the civic body had to abort plans as only one bidder came forward. “The bidder quoted Rs 2700 per tonne of garbage which is around 70 per cent more than what Ramky charges us at present,” a senior official said. Ramky is paid Rs 1640 per tonne of garbage.

According to officials, the private player would be tasked with bringing about transformation in waste collection process in the four zones. “Our aim is to establish binless waste transfer system whereby the wastes are collected at doorstep and taken to the dump yard directly in a compactor. It does add to the maintenance expense of the vehicles but it is one of the many steps in moving forward as far as waste collection and disposal is concerned,” an official said.

Now, a fresh tender is to be floated next month and officials are hopeful of netting a bidder at around the same price as that of Ramky’s. Meanwhile, a plan for the scientific closure of Kodungaiyur and Perungudi landfills is materialising slowly after the consultants involved in the project requested more time to finalise the method of closure. Capping technique is, however, touted to be the preferred method among officials.