Hyderabad: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) flatters to deceive. The civic body, which had promised to set up smart underground bins across 100 locations in the city, has put its promise in cold storage.
In 2017, the corporation had promised to install underground bins at an estimated cost of Rs 5.5 lakh. The bins were expec-ted to be leak proof with no bad odour emanating from them and no overflowing waste. As they were to be underground, vandalism, theft, burning or breaking would be reduced. Corporates were to be roped in to sponsor the project and the proposal was agreed to by the standing committee. A year-and-a-half later, not even a single ‘smart’ dumper bin has been installed.
Under their corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, Ramky Enviro Engineers Limited (REEL) and Kamineni Hospitals were to procure and install the underground bins on a pilot basis at two points in Khairatabad and Jubilee Hills circles.
There are over 4,000 conventional garbage bins in the city and over 600 trucks are used to empty them on a daily basis. The new bins were to be lifted out by specially designed vehicles and emptied by opening the bottom flaps, so that there was no leakage or overflow of the waste. The bins would be equipped with sensors. Each location was to have two such bins, one for wet waste and one for dry waste. However, these grand plans just remained on paper.
A senior GHMC official, who was asked by this newspaper what happened to the dustbin project, said he was newly appointed and clueless about the issue, but would track down the status of the project and make it a reality. But the official hinted that the idea of the underground garbage bins was to get a better ranking in Swachh Survekshan, which reviews the sanitation and hygiene conditions in major municipalities, and the project might be put into cold storage immediately after the survey!
Meanwhile, the corporation has identified another 12 locations for the new bins: Banjara Hills police station, near Sri Aditya Homes Private Limited, beside Shabad hotel, back of the Cineplex, beside Lakshmi Hyundai, near Nandi Nagar bus stop, Basavatarakam Indo American hospital, near Kholani's Fine Dining, near Taj Krishna, Karvy, back of the Apollo and beside Kotha Cheruvu.
One bin costs an astounding Rs 5.50 lakh, including installation and transport and comes with a one-year warranty. Since unloading of the waste from the proposed underground bins requires a special remote-controlled knuckle boom crane mounted on a truck with a tipper body, the transporting and collection of waste from the underground bins will be carried out by Ramky itself.
