Cuttack, May 8: The problem of garbage disposal prevails here with the municipal corporation delaying implementation of the Solid Waste Management Project-2016, which was undertaken to streamline sanitation.
The Cuttack Municipal Corporation is in a spot of bother, as it is yet to award fresh contract for garbage collection after the five-year deal with Ramky Enviro Engineers Limited of Hyderabad expired more than a year ago.
While the civic administration has allowed the firm to continue in an interim arrangement on monthly contract basis, the company has performed its job with much reluctance, resulting in poor sanitation scenario in several parts of the city.
The firm's operation manager Geeti Ranjan Mohanty said: "Since our five-year contract expired in April last year, we have appealed to the civic body at least on three occasions to make alternative arrangement."
He said the company had become inadequately equi-pped as its infrastructure for municipal waste collection and disposal was worn out at the end of the contract period.
Gamhandia resident Pra-vas Parida said: "Garbage and other wastes lying strewn all over the major roads has been a common sight."
Telenga bazaar resident Pradeep Sahu said: "Door-to-door waste collection has become irregular in many areas."
The civic administration has been in a quandary because of the lack of mechanism for monitoring garbage collection. It hoped to reorganise the sanitation job in the city through implementation of the project in the new contract for garbage collection.
A senior official said the municipal corporation had cleared the technical bids of two private companies - one from Mumbai and another from Bangalore - in September last year for consideration of their financial bids to award the contract.
"But, we have not been able to proceed further because of interim restriction, which Orissa High Court has issued on a petition challenging the tender process. We expect the legal hurdle to be cleared shortly for awarding the contract," Cuttack mayor Meenakshi Behera told The Telegraph today.
The municipal corporation officials said awarding of the new contract would pave the way for enforcement of penalty provisions and ensure that the private operator, who gets the contract, does not work sloppily.
"The new contract terms has also included dividing of the city into four zones and opening of zonal offices with telephone facility and field officers or supervisors to ensure monitoring of sanitation work," said chairman of the civic body's standing committee for sanitation and health Ranjan Kumar Biswal.
As part of the contract, the private operator will take up sweeping in 40 of the 59 wards, door-to-door collection of garbage and mechanised swe-eping of identified main roads in all the 59 wards, apart from mechanised transportation of garbage to the transfer station and mechanised forward tran-sportation to the dumping site at Chakradharpur on the city outskirts.
The civic administration, as part of implementation of the project, plans to install Global Positioning Systems on garbage collection vehicles to monitor them and ensure that the vehicles follow the route charted out for them and collect garbage regularly.
