Mechanism for checking on waste collection before clearing contractors' bills faces acid test
A garbage black spot just before the PWD Water supply office near old Hospicio hospital at Monte. Santosh Mirajkar
MARGAO
It’s the time of the month when the Margao Municipality is busy preoccupied with the process of arranging funds towards the payment of salaries to the huge army of Municipal employees and workers, pegged around two crore rupees
And, it’s also a time when the Margao Municipal technical section is busy involved in sanctioning bills of the two door-to-door waste contractors for payments towards garbage collection, amounting to a whopping around Rs 40 lakh per month.
The moot question, however, remains unanswered – Will the Margao Municipal Chief Officer Gaurish Sankhwalkar and the Municipal engineer Deepak Desai activate the engineers and sanitary inspectors, to fan out to the nook and corners of the city and verify that the contractors have collected the waste as per the work order inked by the civic body?
Otherwise, consider this. Last time round, The Goan on October 2 had exposed how tonnes of dry waste was found uncollected across the city when the civic body had to foot an annual garbage collection bill of Rs 5-odd crore as payments for the contractors, a little over Rs 40 lakh on an average per month.
Taking cognizance of the ground reality, both Chief Officer Gaurish Sankhwalkar and Municipal engineer Deepak Desai had set up a system comprising of a team of engineers and sanitary inspectors to do a reality check on waste collection before according sanction to the contractors' bills.
Indeed, the Chief Officer and the Municipal engineer and their mechanism face an acid test as the contractors are expected to submit bills to the civic body for payments. For, the duo had put the mechanism in place to ensure that the bills of the two contractors are sanctioned only based on the report compiled by the engineers and sanitary inspectors.
The ground reality, however, does not paint a rosy picture, more so at the black spots and the city roadsides. A ride down towards the government rest house at Monte Hill via old Hospicio brings to the fore that all is not well with waste collection at the black spots. Right near the turn at the PWD, water supply, one comes across a dump of mixed waste, comprising of plastic bags, debris et al. Interestingly, an old sofa set was also found dumped at the debris. A close look at the mound revealed that the waste must have been dumped some days back, indicating that no agency has reached the place to clear the waste.
Elsewhere, the situation is no better. Be it the Margao station road, or the ring road, between the Comba railway crossing to the Cine Lata migrant colony, one comes across waste and litter on the road sides, throwing up the question whether it’s the responsibility of the door-to-door waste collectors to lift away the waste or the work falls in the domain of the civic body, which is employing an army of workers, including sweepers and garbage workers.
