Garbage mess dots all of Jaipur roads as the Jaipur Municipal Corporation hasn’t allegedly cleared agencies’ due, making them strike work. According to allegations, the contract of private cleaning agencies expired this July 30 and JMC had agreed to increase their tenure by 2 months. But the issue is that the private companies’ previous dues haven’t been cleared yet. Moreover, their dues amount to crores of rupees. So, it’s very acceptable that the agencies have denied working unless their dues get cleared. They have one more demand that says, they should get a 10% hike in the remuneration citing increase in the rate of service tax.
One of the private agencies contractor revealed that they have received just a month’s payment out of their 11 months’ dues. Though their bills costing Rs.15 crore were approved but they haven’t been paid any money yet. These approved bills are of just 5 months. Rest of the bills are under process of approval by the JMC. He said that they have decided not to take up any new work prior to clearance of all dues.
In the absence of the private agencies, JMC is inefficient of handling the garbage clearance responsibility of the entire city due to lack of garbage collection vehicles. While the contractors have 180 tractors, 50 dumpers and 50 loaders, JMC has only 6 tractors, 24 dumpers and 50 loaders. Even extra shifts aren’t helping JMC to manage the waste collection process of the Jaipur city.
The residents of the city complaint that JMC vehicles are only operating in VIP areas and the rest of the city garbage can been seen lying on roads in huge heaps. But executive engineer Atul Sharma said that they are trying to cover all areas and doing 3 shifts because of the lack of vehicles.
JMC commissioner Hemand Kumar Gera told that JMC is in talks with a few people to get more garbage lifting vehicles so as to faster the process of sanitation. They are looking for vehicles such as tractors, loaders, JCB machines and dumpers. And if needed the vehicles shall continue doing more shifts.