The Dhaka City Corporation is yet to make use of 45 out of 100 environment-friendly vehicles, given by the Japan International Corporation Agency, for solid waste management because of poor coordination among the authorities concerned.
The unused and used vehicles are not being properly maintained and they have been kept in open space.
The corporation’s transport manager, Khandeker Millatul Islam, told New Age that they would gradually run these vehicles ward-wise.
‘It is the responsibility of waste management department, not ours, to run these vehicles,’ he said. ‘We are responsible only for the operational side.’
DCC’s chief waste management officer Bipan Kumar Saha said he gave necessary note to the transport department to make use of the unused JICA vehicles.
‘Now it is the responsibility of transport department to run these vehicles,’ he said.
On the other side, the unused vehicles have been kept in the corporation’s mechanical division 1 and 2 in open space while some of the vehicles which are being used are also in an unclean condition.
‘Three of the vehicles are unused here while 22 of these are running,’ said Mohammad Siddiqur Rahman, assistant engineer of DCC’s mechanical division-2.
The New Age correspondent found some vehicles in an unclean condition, covered by dust, for lack of proper management.
An employee, seeking anonymity, of JICA workshop at mechanical division-1 said he did not know about the amount of the vehicles which have been kept here as he was newly appointed in this workshop.
In the division many vehicles were kept in open space without any shade.
An official of the corporation, wishing not to be named, said some spaces have remained unused in the mechanical division-2 but the authorities did not pay heed to the request for keeping JICA’s vehicles there.
The corporation’s waste management division’s executive engineer, Abul Hasnat Mohammad Ashraful Alam, said at present 48 compactor trucks, arm-roll trucks and container carriers were running while seven of them were reserved for technical work.
‘Each of the vehicles costs Tk 70,00,000 to Tk 85,00,000,’ he said.
He said five types of employees such as store-man, foreman and engineer, currently worked in the JICA workshop in the mechanical division-2.
‘There is only one mechanic in the workshop to directly look after the vehicles,’ he said.
