MARGAO
Margao Municipal Council’s door-to-door waste collection has gone haywire in some of the wards as the civic administration has been caught napping over the question of engaging daily wage workers to collect the waste from the houses.
Inquiries conducted by The Goan has revealed there has been no door-to-door waste collection in ward Nos 7, 8 , 9 and 10 since the last four days. Residents in these wards have complained that none of the workers have turned up to collect waste from their households. At many places along the Borda road, one can see waste bins lying dumped along the roadside, indicating that workers engaged by the SHGs have not reported to work since the last four days.
The reason is not far too seek. The SHGs engaged by the civic body for waste collection have stopped work from April 1 since the municipality had earlier resolved not to renew their agreements, which were signed a year ago. Instead, the civic body had resolved to engage daily wage workers to carry out the job, but the recruitment process remains incomplete till date.
Incidentally, while the civic body had adopted a resolution on March 3 last to engage daily wage workers, but the process of recruitment is still not taken to its logical conclusion till date as a result waste collection has been hit in some of the municipal wards.
What’s interesting to note is that the newly-appointed Chief Officer, Deepali Naik, who has taken over additional charge over a week ago, has put up a note seeking to know whether the municipality can engage daily wage workers without prior approval of the Director of Municipal Administration.
In the note, the CO further sought to know whether the municipality has assessed the financial liability of the council in the event the door-to-door waste collection is carried out departmentally by the civic body.
The Chief Officer’s note, sources said, has raised many an eyebrow among the ruling group of councillors led by Chairperson Babita Angle Prabhudessai, who is believed to have questioned the former over the recruitment of daily wage workers.
Taking cognisance of the CO’s note, it is learnt that the office administration has asked the technical section to provide the details of daily wage workers sought to be engaged by the civic body.
Till Monday evening, there was no order issued by the municipal administration to engage daily wage workers, totalling around 93, with fears being expressed in the corridors of the civic body that the door-to-door collection may finally collapse if the municipality does not take pro-active steps to work the system.
