Lifeline: The A2Z office in Harmu, Ranchi

The capital’s private cleanliness monitor — A2Z Waste Management Limited — has won a lifeline, courtesy women ward councillors.

The Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC), which was ready to show the agency the door over alleged incompetence, is learnt to have given A2Z a fortnight’s time to tidy up its records.

On August 19, deputy mayor Sanjeev Vijayvargiya had taken the decision to formally oust the agency at a board meeting later this month, which was to be attended by all the 55 ward councillors. Though the date of the meeting was not finalised, councillors were told to draft proposals to keep the city clean after the private firm made an exit.

The communiqué prompted some women councillors to raise doubts over the “capacity” of their male counterparts to keep the wards clean.

Sunita Tirkey of Ward No. 1 (Kanke Road) said the RMC should come up with an alternative before booting out A2Z. “Earlier, keeping the city clean was the responsibility of the civic body and its councillors (mostly men). The agency came into picture in 2011 and things changed for good. We need to think whether doing away with the company will be a wise decision.”

Husna Ara, councillor of Ward No. 4 (Bargai), agreed. She added insult to injury, saying that if cleanliness was left to men (male councillors), it would be a disaster.

“Ward councillors are good supervisors, but they cannot execute jobs. Without deciding on another company to take up the work, we should not even dream of relieving A2Z. Rather, we should come up with suggestions to help the agency perform better,” she said.

However, the male ward bosses begged to differ.

Md Aslam, councillor of Ward No. 25, insisted, “If the RMC supports us with manpower, equipment and vehicles, we can maintain cleanliness all by ourselves.”