the goan I network
MARGAO
Are the Bihari labourers averse in soiling their hands in collecting the city waste? Or, is it the contractors that is simply shying away from supplying labourers for Margao Municipal Council’s door-to-door waste collection?
These questions have come to the fore as Margao Municipal Council’s ambitious plan to rope in a contractor for door-to-door waste collection has come a cropper. When the civic body opened the tender, it found to its shock and surprise that not a single contractor placed his bid for the project, leaving the MMC officials a worried lot.
For, the existing contractor, engaged for the work of door-to-door waste collection in the 11 wards spread across the Fatorda area, has already served a notice on the civic body to stop the ongoing work on September 15.
Left with no option and the fact that it may consume a lot of time to re-float the tender, the MMC, sources said, has approached the existing labour contractor with a plea to continue the ongoing door-to-door waste collection for some more days as a stop gap arrangement.
MMC Chief Officer, Sidhivinayak Naik told The Goan that the civic body’s tender inviting contractors to take up door-to-door waste collection in the city has gone abegging. “Not a single contractor has come forward to take the project. We are weighing various options, including requesting the existing contractor to continue the work for some time till an alternate solution is worked out,” he said.
The Goan understands that most of the daily wage labourers engaged by the existing contractors on the door-to-door waste collection exercise in the city hail from Northern state of Bihar. Sources in the know say that the migrant workers, irrespective of the State they come from, are not keen in taking up work of garbage collection. Sources informed that many a worker, who had tried their hands on waste collection door-to-door, have quit the job to leave for their native State or take up other odd jobs.
In fact, sources in the civic body informed that migrant workers seemed more interested in other manual jobs, including jobs on the roads, rather than soiling their hands on garbage collection.
As per the government notification, daily wage workers engaged in garbage collection are entitled for a daily wage of Rs 500, in addition to Provident Fund benefits. MMC officials have no idea how much the contractors are paying to the daily wage workers employed by them for the door-to-door waste collection.
