Municipal body delays waste disposal plans

Lackadaisical approach and internal differences between party leaders within the BJP-ruled North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) is working against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Swachc-hh Bharat Mission”. Even after the expiry of the contract, the NDMC has not been able to float new tenders and only been able to arrange for make shift arrangements by granting extension to exiting concessionaires.

Even after the introduction of new guideline for disposal by the Centre early this year, the civic body has failed to finalise the tender document process. The contract of the existing concessionaires expires Friday.

NDMC commissioner P.K. Gupta had said that a 6-month extension must be given to the present concessionaires as the tendering proc-ess requires six months.

Cracks in the ruling BJP came out in open in March this year over the issue of rate to be paid by the NDMC to the concessionaires. On March 10 in NDMC’s House meeting, the then mayor, Ravinder Gupta, did not allow approval of a proposal finalising tender document, saying that the rate mentioned in it is double the amount proposed by the superintendent engineer of auto’s for garbage lifting.

The then leader of the House, Yogender Chandol-ia, even wrote a letter to Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay saying that Mr Gupta violated the Munici-pal Act and stalled the pro-cess of awarding contract of collection and transportation of solid waste. Mr Gupta had not signed the minutes of the House meeting held in March before demitting office in April.

In May, the NDMC had started preparing fresh tender document incorporating the new guidelines issued by the Union government for municipal solid waste. A senior official said that the new proposal, based on new guidelines, has been with mayor Sanjeev Nayyar for the last two months. “To invite bid for the process, the department has sent the file to the mayor’s office two months ago for in-anticipation approval. The mayor has not given his approval since the last two months and, instead, once sought some clarification on some queries,” he added.

In 2005, the contract had been awarded for nine years to the three private concessionaires and at present, work is done on extension mode. “After expiry of original contract, a proposal for fresh tender was initiated and in-principal approval was accorded by the commission on January 11, 2013. After completing all the formalities, the proposal was sent to IIT-Delhi for vetting and checking the proposal and to rate the same on April 30, 2015. IIT-Delhi, approving the pr-oposal, submitted its report on July 2, 2015. “Whole controversy started after completing all the formalities. The proposal was placed before the corporation on March 10 for the approval and process stalled by Mr Gupta,” said a BJP leader.

Taking a dig on the ruling BJP, Leader Of the Opposition Mukesh Goel said that the Opposition has not raised the issue and it came out in public domain only due to internal difference within the BJP and its leader.