NASHIK: After a heated discussion in the general body meeting on
Thursday regarding clearance of garbage in the city by ghantagadi
services operated by a contractor, the NMC is likely to decentralize
garbage collection by appointing prabhagwise ghantagadi contractors.

Mayor Yatin Wagh, while concluding the deliberation on the issue, asked municipal commissioner Sanjay Khandare to draft a revised proposal. Corporators cutting across party lines expressed anger over shoddy garbage disposal by the existing contractor. The proposal to float fresh tenders amounting to Rs11 crore to collect
garbage across the city through ghantagadis and place it at the
fertilizer project at Pathardi was tabled . Sanjay Khandare
said, “We will have to appoint 61 contractors in 61 prabhags (each
prabhag has two corporators) if we appoint prabhagwise contactors. Each
prabhag is geographically small or large. Hence we will have to study
the needs of each prabhag in terms of number of ghantagadis and
labourers.”

The opposition leader in the House, Sudhakar Badgujar of the Shiv Sena
said, “The NMC has its own 121 ghantagadis and the diesel to run these
are also supplied by the NMC. Only the labourers are appointed by the
contractor. At this juncture, it will cost around Rs 5 crore if NMC
starts garbage collection on its own.”

Shailesh Dhage of the
Shiv Sena said, “NMC has committed a mistake by appointing only a single
contractor for the whole city and they have no control over the
contractor. Hence, ghantagadi contractors should be appointed at the
prabhag level.”

The standing committee of the NMC, during its
meeting on August 13, had extended the contract of garbage collection
from all six divisions of the civic body by two months. The contract was
to end on August 22 this year.