Note: This posting was in my draft for quite some time and I forgot to publish it. So its slightly outdated, but at least reflects what I was going on in my mind a couple of weeks back.
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If you and your parents ever had a conversation in Tamizh, during the time you were a teenager, the phrase "nee kuppai kotta kooda laayakku illai" must have entered the scene at least one out of three times.
That phrase, my friends is applicable to the Chennai Corporation, the Mayor of Chennai, the Local Administration Minister of TN and also the Chief Minister of TN.
Collectively this motley group of morons, have ensured that come pockets of Chennai become "Stink-aara Chennai" a moniker far removed from the Utopian dream of "Singaara Chennai".
What steps had been taken by the Coprporation to actually inspect the new agency's capability to take over from the first guy? Going by the evidence that is visible even to a blind life-form on Mars, the Corporation has not done any such inspection.
A simple check would have shown them that the new agency didn't have the basic understanding of replacing the Garbage bins that the previous agency had. They might give a million reasons about delays in procurement or the vehicle that was transporting the bins getting lost in the Bermuda Triangle. But the onus was surely on Chennai Corporation to ensure that things were in place.
And after seeing (and obviously smelling) all the garbage piled up in the city, our Government took the great step of having the Policemen come and clear up the garbage. If only the officials in-charge of taking this decision had some exposure to senior managers of an IT company, they would have very well gone ahead and said any/all of the following:
1. they optimised the availability of people
2. they ensured that things went smoothly
3. they proactively took steps to minimise further damage
4. they feel they can start looking at this as a new business model
But as usual, I digress. Having Policemen clear garbage? That's so ridiculous. The Corporation could have very well deployed thousands of daily wage laborers for this. They could have gone back to Onyx right away and worked out a deal for a few days. But asking Policemen to clear garbage was a typically idiotic move that this Government is capable of.
As it is, the motivation of the force is quite low. Most of them join the force not by choice, but due to lack of other options. Agreed a whole lot of them act as stooges of the political party that is in power, but there must some good percentage of cops who are genuinely interested and deeply proud and passionate about being a Policeman.
Isn't the Government reducing the sanctity of the job by asking them to pick up the mountains of piled up garbage? One might argue that the Armed Forces are quite often called in for help whenever there is a natural calamity. That's a whole different challenge and definitely requires extensive planning and lot of courageous souls to participate in rescue operations. Not the case, while allu-fying kuppai.
Things have definitely improved now and the new company has started its operations. But I still cannot forgive this Government and Chennai Corporation for making my neighborhood such a big cess-pool.
