CMC garbage collection and disposal:

Contractors shortlisted

Shirley Wijesinghe

Five successful contractors have been short listed and their names were produced before the Supreme Court to award the tender for garbage collection and disposal in the Colombo Municipality, CMC Waste Management Unit official P. Thangamyil told the Daily News yesterday.

The Supreme Court had directed the CMC to follow the procedure with two priorities. Each contractor will be assigned three districts out of six districts of the Municipality, Thangamyil said.

For the first time the short listing procedure for garbage contractors had been done by the evaluation board comprising representatives of the Central Environmental Authority (CEA), Sustainable Energy Authority (SEA), Board of Investment (BOI), Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB)Finance Ministry and the CMC.

However it will takeover another year to provide a sustainable solution to the garbage problem in the Colombo city.

Plans are being implemented for providing temporary solutions to the problem like looking for suitable landfills with the assistance of private sector, he said.

Objections of the villagers in the area surrounding present dump site in Pothuvil Kumbura, Kolonnawa was still a concern of the CMC, he said.

Remarking on the present weak vehicle fleet he said that approval for purchasing additional number of vehicles had been given by the present administrative authorities and he hoped it would be possible to operate two or three additional dump trucks for garbage transporting.