The Times of India 02.08.2012
Gurgaon municipality yet to finalize sanitation contractors for fourth zone
GURGAON: Even though four
months have passed since the process to award a sanitation contract for
all its four zones began, the municipal corporation has not been able to
complete it till now.
The process ideally should get over in a
fortnight. This inordinate delay, as sources indicate, is because of
rampant corruption among officials who tried to ensure that a tainted
agency gets the contract of all the four zones. As reported by TOI on
several occasions, the agency, Balaji Security Services, purposefully
quoted the least amount so that they get the contract, even as officials
themselves admit that the amount quoted is not enough to engage the
required number of sanitation workers and machinery in all the four
zon "After a lot of hue and cry
was raised over Balaji getting the contract for all the four zones, the
MCG officials and councillors went into damage control mode and have
since been trying to convince the agency owner to give up his claim on
at least two zones. In fact, they even "forced" him to sign a
declaration stating that he voluntarily wants to give up the contract
for two zones. All this is leading to the delay," said a source.
Officially though, the chairman of the sanitation committee insists that
nothing is amiss in the tendering process.
"We have finalized
the contract for three zones. While the sanitation work in Zone 1 and 3
will be done by Balaji agency, the work in Zone 2 will be done by the
agency that is already doing the job of door-to-door garbage collection.
We have not been able to finalize the agency for Zone 4 as all the
agencies that participated in the tendering process have quoted almost
the same price for this zone. Since there are lots of discrepancies, we
have decided to go for re-tendering and this process might take another
four months," said Lakhpat Kataria, chairman, MCG sanitation committee.
