Downpour affects conservancy work

Conservancy workers told DC that tricycle operators found it difficult to drag the waste mixed with water. "It felt like dragging double the weight," said a worker.

Staff resorted to employing bobcats to shore up the garbage in mounds at a particular point in a water-stagnated area, before transferring it on to mini lorries for transportation to transfer stations and landfills.

“We cannot clear garbage when it rains heavily as it did today. The only solution is to wait until the skies clear a bit," said another worker.

The city generates nearly 6,000 MT of garbage on a daily basis, one of the highest in the nation. Residents complained that uncleared garbage was a readymade health hazard. “With the stagnating water and the loose garbage, all sorts of illnesses are waiting at our doorstep,” said G. Kirubakaran, a resident of Tondiarpet.

Transfer trucks too were stuck in traffic for a long time as water stagnation affected the city's vehicular movement. “What usually takes one hour or so took us nearly three hours on Sunday,” the worker added.

Meanwhile, the Kodungaiyur landfill site has turned mushy due to the rainfall. "The dump trucks get stuck in the roads inside the site due to the bad condition and so we have no choice but to dump waste at the entrance itself," said a conservancy inspector.

Manpower was also severely depleted on Sunday as corporation officials resorted to deputing conservancy workers to operate motorised pumps in areas where stagnation was reported.

“Sweeping could not be done for obvious reasons. But we were directed to clean chute pipes of storm water drains that had got stuck because the corporation has very few road workers to do this.”

Source segregation of garbage too was affected as conservancy inspectors said that it was difficult for their workers to ask the residents to split their waste when the city was reeling under a stagnation crisis.