The appointment of retired judge V. Parthiban as the one-man commission by the Madras High Court to probe the alleged police excesses while breaking up conservancy workers’ protest in Chennai has spotlighted the persistent challenges in public-private partnership in solid waste management. Among the issues are low wages, inadequate social security, and absence of government jobs for workers’ children on compassionate grounds. Low wages offered by a private company engaged in solid waste management triggered the protest, which morphed into a movement against public-private partnership. The reason: the workers realised that their children would no longer have the opportunity to get government jobs on compassionate grounds.
The quest for permanent government jobs for conservancy workers in Chennai dates back to 1998-1999, when current Chief Minister M.K. Stalin decided to outsource waste management during his tenure as the Mayor. A cleaner ‘Singara Chennai’, successful mechanisation of conservancy, and improved public health were the major priorities of the civic body under his leadership. The downside was that the private sector jobs for cleaning the roads left women workers unmotivated to demand promotion. The wages were inadequate for a family to sustain itself.
