Guwahati: NGOs entrusted with cleaning garbage in the city have said they have not been paid bills for nearly a year, resulting in delay in waste collection.

"The delay in paying pending bills affects the entire process of garbage collection. Since the start of our contract in September last year, the bills have not been paid," said the member of an NGO, which has been contracted by the Guwahati Municipal Corporation for eight years, on Sunday.

"Even for segregation, we have been selected among 58 NGOs this year. We have 14 and six workers in the morning and evening shift respectively for door-to-door garbage collection. Most households put solid and wet waste together. After collection of garbage in the morning, the solid waste is sold off by the workers while the wet waste is carried to three dustbins and later transferred to the Boragaon dumping ground by the GMC," said the activist.

"Our bills come to around Rs 2 lakh a month. We have been paying the workers from the monthly user collection fees, a part of which is paid to the GMC. The GMC later deducts 50 per cent of the total bill amount," the NGO member said.

A GMC official said Rs 5 crore has been sanctioned for door-to-door garbage collection under the fifth state finance commission.

"There is a billing issue. When we will get the money, we clear the pending bills immediately. We informed the NGOs during issuing the tender that the bills will be cleared according to availability of funds," the official said.

"All the NGOs selected for the garbage collection are not up to the mark. Some of them are exceptional. Those, which are not good, are either penalised or replaced," he said.

"The user collection fees fluctuate as the GMC gives us the receipt books at the end of every month. Therefore, there is hardly any money left to pay the workers, especially when our bills are pending with the corporation," said another NGO member.