Dispute over waste collection between Kochi corp and HKS members

Kochi: A dispute between Kochi corporation health department officials and Haritha Karma Sena (HKS) members stalled waste collection from Gandhi Nagar division for the past few days. Though the waste was collected by afternoon, the dispute is yet to die down.According to HKS members, the garbage collected by them should be loaded onto the trucks by the workers deployed by corporation, while the local body officials argue that it is the responsibility of HKS members. After waste removal from the areas was hit, locals raised protests against corporation authorities. "Usually, we would collect garbage from households and shift it to the collection point. All 12 members in our HKS team are women, mostly older women. When normal trucks arrive for collection of waste, we will load the waste into the truck on our own. But on Monday, the corporation sent a refuse compactor truck to collect the waste. The refuse compactor truck is a vehicle with more height. So, when such big vehicles are sent, corporation-deployed workers would load the waste into the truck as the older women in our team won't be able to do it," a member of HKS in Gandhi Nagar division said. "On Monday, corporation didn't send workers to load the waste into the truck. As it was a difficult job, we asked corporation authorities to deploy their workers to do it," she said. At the same time, the corporation officials said that it was the responsibility of HKS members to load the waste into the trucks. "However, we heeded to their demands on Monday and provided the corporation's workers to load the waste. But, there will be a right decision on Tuesday," an official with the corporation's health wing said. According to the HKS members, the corporation is not providing adequate trucks to transport waste.