Chennai: The TVK govt has withdrawn its tenders to study outsourcing solid waste management operations in 12 corporations across the state, following political backlash from its allies. The tenders were floated last week for a detailed feasibility report for the 12 corporations for collection and transportation of solid waste in models similar to Chennai’s privatisation model.These 12 corporations, including Avadi, Tambaram, Trichi, Madurai and Coimbatore, have had an ongoing privatised waste collection system since 2022. The tender period was about to expire, and the govt had floated a tender to prepare DFR to execute a key-performance indicator based waste-collection for the next phase.“However, the information was misconstrued by many as though the govt was privatising the 12 corporations for the first time. We cancelled the tenders to clear the misunderstanding. As the DFR tender for 12 corporations was bunched together, it also created a perception of a big privatisation plan. The tenders will be reviewed and locally taken forward,” an official said.At the moment, the civic bodies have a basic privatised waste collection model where they are paid by per tonnage of waste collected. “In Chennai, we have a model where attendance, machinery, manpower and quality of waste clearance is measured. We wanted to adopt a similar KPI based system for the other 12 corporations, and the tenders were meant for that,” the official said.VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan had on Wednesday demanded the rollback of the tenders, saying: “The stance of the Tamil Nadu govt to hand over sanitation works in all municipal corporations across Tamil Nadu to private entities on a contract basis is shocking. During the previous regime, when such an initiative was attempted in just one or two zones of the Chennai Corporation, it faced opposition from VCK and various other parties, leading to its eventual abandonment.” The tenders also faced opposition from Communist parties.The DMK govt had cancelled a waste privatisation plan for Tondiarpet and Anna Nagar zones in Chennai after prolonged protests by sanitation workers in Chennai.
