MAPUSA
Even as the Mapusa Municipal Council (MMC) has served a show-cause notice to its current private contractor for irregular and unsatisfactory door-to-door garbage collection, the civic body is now planning to outsource waste collection in another ten wards of the town.
Presently, the MMC has outsourced garbage collection in Wards 11 to 20 to a private agency, while the remaining ten wards (1 to 10) are managed by municipal workers.
The council now intends to hand over waste collection in these remaining wards to private operators as well.
According to sources within the council, the move aims to improve efficiency and streamline waste management in Mapusa.
“It’s obvious that civic workers under the municipal administration are not able to do the job properly. Outsourcing to a private body aims to ensure more efficient collection at the source,” a councillor from the ruling group said, requesting anonymity.
However, the decision has raised eyebrows, given that the existing contractor for Wards 11 to 20 was recently issued a show-cause notice for poor performance.
The contractor has been accused of irregular garbage collection and failure to maintain cleanliness standards. Critics within the council believe that expanding outsourcing when the current system is already under scrutiny could prove counterproductive.
A senior civic official clarified that the plan is still in the proposal stage.
“There are plans to outsource door-to-door garbage management of the remaining ten wards. It is expected to help improve waste management. But the final decision will be taken by the council,” the official said.
The MMC has been facing sustained criticism over irregular garbage collection and the persistence of black spots across Mapusa.
Councillors have repeatedly raised concerns about inefficiency, especially during festive seasons, when absenteeism among civic workers further disrupts operations.
To address these issues, the council had outsourced door-to-door garbage collection in Wards 11 to 20 last year, allowing it to redeploy around 20 municipal workers for clearing black spots and other sanitation work.
Officials claim that the outsourced system has delivered relatively better results compared to the earlier MMC-managed collection, though they admit it is far from perfect.
The MMC believes that full outsourcing of all wards could help redeploy existing civic staff for sweeping, street cleaning, and other maintenance duties, thereby improving overall cleanliness in the town.
Still, with the current contractor under fire for lapses, whether expanding outsourcing will solve Mapusa’s garbage woes or deepen them remains to be seen.
