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