Hey JPR it looks like they are cleaning up Chennai,'bout time eh?
Singapore co bags Chennai's waste disposal contract
D Govardan -ETonline
Chennai 4 October
MANUAL sweepers clad in dirty uniforms and age-old trucks of the Corporation of Chennai involved in collection and disposal of municipal solid waste (MSW) in the city will soon be a thing of the past.
Replacing them will be workers wearing neat trousers, T-shirts, shoes, gloves and caps and aided by state-of-the-art hook-lift trucks and mechanical sweepers. The Singapore-based CGEA Asia Holdings Pte Ltd, as the successful bidder for the privatisation exercise, is set to bring in this sweeping change.
The company is a 100-per cent subsidiary of CGEA, an international group of France and part of $40bn Vivendi, a world leader in utilities. CGEA serves 4,000 local authorities worldwide representing 30 million people and handles 25 million tonnes of waste, through CGEA Onyx, the waste management sector of CGEA.
"The entire project cost, estimated at Rs 38.5 crore, will be brought in as equity by the holding company, which will establish an operating company in India,?? official sources said.
The Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (Tidco), which was given the mandate to identify the private sector partner for the Chennai Corporation, had floated a global tender in May, this year. While seven companies were keen to participate in the project, four companies including two foreign ones were shortlisted.
Weightage was given to companies with sufficient net worth, experience in handling such MSW projects and how they would go about educating and creating an awareness among the masses. The number of vehicles owned by the company for deployment in the project, besides leased vehicles, was also considered to evaluate the bidder's long-term commitment for the project.
"Only CGEA could pass the rigorous evaluation criteria,"the officials said.
The privatisation is to be implemented in three zones extending over 50 wards of the city including T Nagar, Triplicane, Mylapore, Besant Nagar, Adyar and inhabited by about two million people. The selected zones, a combination of commercial, residential and low income group areas with 720 km of street length, generate 950 tonnes of garbage and 150 tonnes of construction debris per day.
"The idea is to present a typical representative sample of the city," the officials said. The annual savings to the Chennai Corporation, which spends about Rs 25 crore per annum for removal and disposal of garbage in the three zones, will be about Rs 10-12 crore.
The Corporation of Chennai and the special purpose vehicle to be set up by CGEA will enter into a contract agreement initially for seven years. The contract will be reviewed at the end of the period. "We are looking at a long-term co-operation, unlike cities in other states, where such contracts with private partners is for one year," the officials said.
CGEA will establish intermediate collection sites for MSW, from where it will be taken to the dumping site at Perungudi, south of Chennai. Energy Development Ltd, Australia, which is setting up a 15MW power plant, will utilise this dumped MSW for generating electricity.
CGEA is expected to employ about 1,800 people for on- field as well as administrative activities, besides deploying 30 rear-lift compacting trucks, over 100 light collection vehicles, besides hook-lift trucks and mechanical sweepers. |
