JAIPUR: The tall claims by the civic authorities to build a clean city have fallen flat in the wake of the heavy rainfall that lashed Jaipur on Tuesday midnight.

Despite employing 8,000 people and spending Rs 19crore per month on sanitation, the city streets are littered with garbage, and drains are choked. The Jaipur Municipal Corporation, in a face-saving effort, has now hired 3,000 more people on contract to clean the mess.

However, a site inspection by the sanitation inspector revealed that not a single person was spotted at work.

"Mayor Jyoti Khandelwal and JMC CEO Lok Nath Soni announced that they would hire additional 3,000 temporary workers to clean the city. I personally took a round of four wards (Civil Lines, Moti Doongri, Sanganer and Mansarovar), but did not find a single sweeper," claimed Roshan Saini, chairman, sanitation committee.

He went on to allege that "The mayor is only interested in meeting the CM to get more power or change CEOs. Sanitation of the city was never on her agenda for the last three years. I personally wrote thrice to the mayor and CEO for sanctioning funds for cleaning the drains, but didn't get any response."

Consider this: the JMC employs 5,617 regular employees which includes sweepers. The total amount it spends to pay them per month stands at a staggering Rs 12 crore. To supervise them, 300 supervisors have been hired, which includes chief sanitary inspectors, sanitary inspectors, three health officers and one health commissioner.

Besides, the regular expenses on lifting, transporting and dumping garbage are estimated at Rs 4-5 crore every month. Another 2,500 workers are employed through contractors on daily wages, the expenditure on which comes close to Rs 1.5 crore per month.

In addition to all this, the collection of bio-medical waste has been privatized.

"Even after spending so much in the name of sanitation, Jaipur stands 230th in the Union ministry's ranking of 423 Class-I cities vis-a-vis sanitation conditions. One wonders where the money is going," an official said.

"The night sweeping that was carried out during former chief minister Vasundhara Raje's tenure has also stopped," the official added.

The civic body has come under a lot of criticism for failing to start the door-to-door garbage collection system. Moreover, Jaipur is perhaps one of the few cities which follow a bizarre three-tier garbage collection system with a separate person to sweep roads, collect waste and then dump it. If one of them does not turn up, the area remains unclean for that particular day.

The court, however, has intervened and asked the JMC to submit a detailed report on its cleanliness scheme.

The Rajasthan high court had asked the JMC to submit its scheme for keeping the city clean, create awareness on civic sense and set up mobile courts to fine people on the spot for littering. Ashok Singh, director (law), JMC said, "We had to work on 15-16 issues and submit a proposal within 60 days. The JMC is working on them and we would submit our proposal within a month."

Even if JMC looks at hiring a private agency for 50% of the amount that it spends on sanitation, the city can sparkle. As of date, according to information, the JMC spends about Rs 19 crore per month on sanitation. But you never see a single soul cleaning and heaps of garbage sits for months covering half of the roads. And ironically even while the proposed door to door garbage collection has not yet been implemented by JMC, your monthly electricity bill has already started charging you for that service.

Only about numbers:

Regular employees 5,617

Supervisory staff 300

Contractual workers 2,500

Additional temporary workers 3,000