Kullu: From paying from civic funds to gather garbage in the township, the collection scheme is turning into a revenue source for the municipal council here as the residents would have to pay for the service as directed by the National Green Tribunal.
Where earlier Sunshine, a Chandigarh based company, under contract was being paid for collecting the garbage, now under a new contract a Nodia based company would be paying money to the Kullu municipal council.
It could turn out to be a good source of income for us,” says Rishabh Kalia, president Kullu MC.
Due to lack of efficiency and timely collection of garbage, a need was felt for long to award the job to some other agency or company as the one awarded the contract was not doing a good job,’’ said Kalia. He added, “the need was much felt as resident often complained about garbage scattered at various places.”
The president pointed out that under the new contract terms, the Kullu municipal council would not only save Rs 72 lakhs per year on the garbage collection scheme but would also earn Rs 50 thousand per month that the company would pay to the civic body.
About the money that the Kullu council paid for the scheme, he said that with new terms in place, it clearly showed that the earlier contract was flawed.
Laying the blame at Kullu Executive officer cum sub divisional magistrate office, the Kullu MC president told Hill Post that the council was earlier paying Rs 6 lakhs per month towards garbage collection to the Chandigarh company.
We have lodged a complaint and sought an enquiry into the matter, said Kalia
When Hill Post contacted Shatrunash Gupta, an executive of Sunshine, he blamed the MC for not paying monthly salary to their workers for past three months, who have been collecting garbage from town. We haven’t not been informed about new tender and our workers would continue to work untill they are paid,” said Gupta.
Whatever be the story about the new contract system, but it is true that even after initiating garbage collection scheme by MC Kullu, still there are many important places in town where scenes of scattered garbage is common to see which irritate public, as a result of it people are seen often complaining about improper cleanliness drive initiated by MC Kullu.
A theater artist, a script writer and a TV anchor, news is something that grips Renuka. She lives in Kullu.
