The Pioneer 22.10.2013
RMC board okays alternate arrangement for garbage collection
management firm A2Z seems to have got another lease of life after the
board of Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) failed to evolve consensus
on the fate of the firm which has been at the centre of the storm for
its failure to keep the city free of garbage.
Instead, the board has now decided to partner the firm in putting up an
alternate arrangement before calling the agreement off. Interestingly,
the board which had given three months time to the firm in its last
meeting has now decided to form a sanitation committee in all wards and
to work together with the A2Z in as many as 11 wards on pilot mode for
garbage lifting. Under the arrangement a ward councilor will be bestowed
with the authority of hiring rickshaw pullers to collect garbage, like
the employees of the A2Z, which will be equivalent to the gap in the
manpower of A2Z for a particular ward.
“The additional manpower will collect the fee for lifting garbage and
that will be their salary. We will fix accountability on them also,”
said Deputy Mayor Sanjeev Vijay Vargiya. The experiment if succeeds will
be implemented in another 25 wards and depending on the success will be
introduced in all wards thus further weakening the case of A2Z which
claims to be doing more with limited resources.
“That way we will put up an alternate arrangement before taking a final
call on A2Z” said Vargiya. Interestingly, the RMC expressed its
helplessness on terminating the contract of the waste management firm.
“Several important events are round the corner besides the festival of
Diwali and Chhath. So we cannot terminate their contract at the moment,”
said Chief Executive Officer of RMC, Deepankar Panda.