Indian Express 30.11.2010
Sanitation contracts renewed with 82% hike
Express News Service Tags : Mohali Municipal Council, MC, MC president Rajinder Rana Posted: Tue Nov 30 2010, 05:54 hrs
Mohali: The Mohali Municipal Council (MC) on Thursday decided to renew the existing contracts for undertaking sanitation works in the city with over 82 per cent hike in the present contract amounts.As the present annual contracts expire on Thursday, the civic body approved extension to the present contractors to continue the job with immediate effect from Friday for at least next two months. Till then, the MC will call fresh bids for awarding the contracts to new contractors, if any, come forward to take up the work on lesser rates.
A resolution to this effect was unanimously adopted at a special meeting of the MC House, chaired by its vice-president Harpal Singh. Even as MC president Rajinder Rana, his mentor local MLA Balbir Sidhu, who is an ex-officio MC member, and most of the councillors skipped the meeting, convened to take call on a major public issue, the MC officials had to make frantic calls to the councillors to come and ensure the fulfilment of quorum to initiate proceedings of the MC House meeting.
It was after around half-an-hour of the scheduled time of 3 pm that the minimum required 17 of the total 31 councillors were arranged to attend the meeting, enabling to proceed further.
As all 11 councillors of the SAD-backed opposition group, present at the meeting, took the Congress-led ruling group to task for not initiating the proceedings well in advance to ensure transparency in the award of sanitation contracts, the six ruling group councillors pressed for resolving to renew the present contracts so that the essential work could not stop after expiry of present contracts.
However, ruling group councillors accused opposition group for withholding all the agenda items, which also included renewal of sanitation contracts, brought at the MC monthly meeting held on September 23.
On the strong resentment of the House on the non-satisfactory working of the present sanitation contractors, MC Executive Officer Amana Kumar Goel assured to form a five-member councillors’ panel to submit satisfactory report every month before release of contract amount to the contractors. “If councillors are not satisfied with the job, the contractor will not be paid,” Goel further assured.
Effecting a hike of over 82 per cent, the estimates of four sanitation contracts last year given at Rs 1.5 crore per annum were increased to Rs 2.23 crore per annum while two additional garbage lifting contracts have been estimated to be allotted at Rs 50.7 lakh, taking the total amount of contracts to Rs 2.74 crore. However, the MC budget has provision of spending Rs 1 crore on sanitation contracts.
