the goan I network
MARGAO
The Margao Municipal Council found itself in a crisis-like situation on waste collection with the contractor abandoning the work of garbage collection and the civic body struggling to cope up with the emerging situation.
As garbage piled up in Margao since the last two days, Margao Municipal Chairperson Babita Prabhudesai conceded that a disastrous situation is staring at the city as the contractor has abandoned work of door-to-door waste collection.
The civic body was quick to terminate the services of the contractor engaged in the door-to-door waste collection on Friday, but that has not changed the ground reality, with the waste piling up at every corner of the city throughout the day. The situation is further compounded by the fact that the civic body is barred from open-dumping at the existing Sonsodo dump yard and the sudden withdrawal by the labour contractor has only aggravated the problem with no labourers around to segregate the waste at the black spots.
Municipal Chief Officer Sidhivinayak Naik was huddled with his officers on Friday evening in a bid to thrash the
trash crisis and it has now
been decided to engage a labour contractor on government rates till the civic body invites bids from prospective bidders and finalise the new contractor to take up the door-to-door waste collection of garbage.
‘The Goan’ understands that the new stop gap contactor is expected to take up the work of door-to-door waste collection from Monday, with sources saying the civic body may avail the services of the contractor for a period of two months till the it floats a new tender and finalises the contractor.
MMC Chairperson Babita Prabhudesai was candid in admitting that a disastrous situation is staring at the city with the contractor abandoning the door-to-door waste collection in Margao. “The situation is bad in Margao since the civic body has asked the contractor engaged in the work of waste collection in Fatorda to continue for some time till a new contractor is finalized,” she said.
A visit to the some of the black spots around Margao revealed that waste has been piling up with no one around to lift the waste. Officials say the situation may aggravate further during the weekend if the civic body comes up with a stop gap arrangement for the segregation and lifting of the waste from the black spots. Even as MMC faces manpower crunch after the contractor abandoned door-to-door waste collection, MMC’s 224 daily wage workers have been left high and dry for want of wage payments
In fact, these daily wage workers, engaged by various Municipal sections, had to go without wages for the month of September for no fault of theirs
When a group of daily wage workers came to question the officials over their delayed payment, they were only told that they will soon receive their payments
These 224 daily wage workers may have to wait till next week to receive their wages for the simple reason that the file is still being processed by the civic body
