Additional Municipal Contract Awarded

10 January 2008

Today, Shuddham officially took over garbage collection for the rest of Raj Bhavan (excluding the Park but including Beach Road) - covering most of “white” (or “French”) Pondicherry.  In fact, we started last night by picking up three tractor loads worth of garbage from the new area to be covered (the area south of the Park), but that was not enough for us to start off with a clean (so to speak) slate - the streets had not been properly cleaned for a week.

One of the typical streets south of the Park this morning 

Yesterday, we contracted additional tractor pick-ups, interviewed for two new supervisors, and tried to hire back-up workers in case the women already working for the other company didn’t want to work for Shuddham.  (We want to give all the current employees of the former contractor an opportunity to keep their jobs.)  The volunteer members of Shuddham went to speak with some of the residents and hotels in the area  personally to inform them that we would be instituting a new system soon and to please not throw their waste onto the streets - we would come and pick it up.

Today, none of the other workers showed up for work.  They were busy protesting the termination of their previous employment when they haven’t been paid for 5 months. Somehow, with a skeletal staff, no additional supervisors, and a backlog of garbage in the streets, the existing workers managed to clean most of the streets.  A ride-by this evening showed a marked contrast to the situation this morning.  It’s amazing what a daily pick-up of garbage will do for a city!

We won’t institute the recycling program until we are at full staff and all the systems have been put in place.  (Our three new tricycles were delivered this evening.)  Then, volunteers will go door-to-door with the new posters designed by Tony and Kyle and other education material and ask all the households and institutions in the area to segregate their garbage.