Councillors lock the gate of Sambalpur Municipality. Telegraph picture

Sampalpur, Aug. 26: Sambalpur Municipality councillors locked the municipality office today in protest against the piling sanitation mess in the city.

The councillors first cleaned the city’s ring road with the help of gang men of the municipality and then began the agitation.

On August 24, councillors of 15 wards of had locked the civic body’s office building for two hours protesting against poor sanitation in their respective wards. The councillors said the municipality was paying Rs 70,000 per ward to the organisation which was assigned the sanitation work earlier. When the agreement with that organisation expired, the municipality invited fresh applications from interested firms for sanitation work in the city. And the municipality agreed to pay Rs 1.7 lakh to the new firm for each ward.

The councillors alleged that the price was too high and the selection process had not been transparent. The collector had asked the municipality chairperson to renegotiate with the new organisation and revise the price.

Sambalpur Municipality chairperson Reena Trivedi had said: “Because of the intervention of the collector, the municipality is facing problems and the sanitation in the city has come to a standstill.”

“The sanitation situation in the city is in a mess. One can see heaps of garbage and chocked drains everywhere in the city. But the municipality authorities is indifferent towards the situation. So, we took up the cleaning work ourselves. We have cleaned the Ring Road today and we will start cleaning the city from tomorrow,” said Ashok Sony, a councillor.

“The councillors have been demanding a renegotiation with the firm and start the sanitation work of the city. The firm that has been assigned the sanitation is also ready for renegotiation. But the chairperson is reluctant to renegotiate,” he said.

“Since the chairperson is not ready for renegotiation with the firm, we have started cleaning the city. There were 19 councillors present during the cleaning of the Ring Road,” said Siddharth Saha, another councillor.

Tripathy said: “The selection of the firm has been done in a free and fair manner. The firm which had quoted the lowest rate has been assigned the job. The municipal laws do not allow us to renegotiate with the firm. Moreover, post-tender negotiation may lead to legal problems.”