BMP's garbage tenders yet to get Government's nod

BMP's garbage tenders yet to get Government's nod

The Hindu

The BMP Council approved the fresh tenders on June 15

# Clearance is expected soon: BMP official
# Under the new contract, the city's roads will be cleaned with the help of machines

BANGALORE: Two months after the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) forwarded its new garbage tenders to the State Government for approval, it is yet to get the green signal from the Government.

After a delay of over one year, the BMP Council finally approved on June 15 fresh garbage tenders for collection and transportation of municipal solid waste and street sweeping in the city.

Cleaning of the city will be handed over to the new set of contractors only after the Government approves it.

Sources in the BMP told The Hindu that the civic body was doing its best to get the tenders approved at the earliest.

"It is likely to be approved in two or three days," a top official pointed out.

Pointing out that BMP Commissioner K. Jairaj had been following up the matter at the government level, the official said that approval might be accorded soon.

Reason for delay

While the sources said that the delay was because the file pertaining to garbage tenders was forwarded to the Government only in mid-July, BMP officials said Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, who also holds the Urban Development portfolio, had not been able to study the subject because of his busy schedule.

This apart, after Lakshmi Venkatachalam took over as Principal Secretary (Urban Development) from the former Secretary Shamim Banu, the matter had to be pursued from the beginning, the sources said.

Under the new contract, citizens will see the city's main and arterial roads being cleaned with the help of machines.

Mechanised sweeping, night cleaning and use of compactors to compress garbage for transportation without spilling garbage on the roads are some of the major highlights of the new tenders. These have been allotted in exclusive packages to eight contractors.

Though the term of the existing garbage tenders ended on June 1 last year and the BMP called fresh tenders only in December. The existing contractors were asked to continue cleaning activities till further orders.

The civic body, which is spending Rs. 38 crore annually on the present contracts, will spend Rs. 90 crore a year for cleaning under the new contracts, which have been allotted in 32 packages.

This amount includes labour and transportation charges, service tax and other charges.

Besides, 63 more health wards have been included in the private contract system and 9.5 lakh houses in 245 health wards will be covered under the new contracts. Now private contractors are collecting garbage from 6.8 lakh houses in 182 heath wards.

The delay in approval has irked both the elected representatives and the present contractors. While corporators are only hoping that the new contracts will come into force by November, when their term ends, the contractors are worried over the increasing fuel costs.

"We have been continuing work at the same old costs for the last one year. We had asked the BMP to pay us 35 per cent more to bear the fuel costs. But the officials have been assuring us that the new tenders will come into force soon," a spokesperson from the Bangalore Mahanagara Swachate Lorry Maalikara Mattu Guttigedarara Sangha said.