In spite of debarring the solid waste management company from the work for not adhering to the norms as per the agreement, the attempts of Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) seem futile to streamline the essential service.
Recently, considering the work progress of Essel Infra, the company responsible for handling solid waste, Minister of Urban Development, CP Singh debarred the firm and had given a month time to rationalise the service but on contrary no concrete step has been taken up even to ensure the regularity in door-to-door garbage collection.
Having no alternative with RMC at present to manage the waste collections, disposed from 2.5 lakh houses and commercial setups, most of the Municipal Corporation officials are of the opinion that debarring a firm does not mean it cannot continue to work.
Officials opined that deadline have been fixed for the firm for taking up the project in a full-fledged way. Ironically, none of the officials are clear about the deadline that has been decided during the RMC Board Meeting.
“Only if, Essel Infra miserably fails to fulfill the promise violating the norms hardly then strict action will be taken against the company. There is a legal provision that need to be followed before blacklisting a firm hired up for discharging specific duty,” said RMC Officer (PRO), Naresh Sinha.
Interestingly, the company so far even after getting the notice is yet to boost the number of human resource personnel, construct Mini transfer station (MTS) for segregating waste materials at demarcated locations and to ensure the vehicle registration to line up the existing solid waste management system here in Capital City.
Due to the heedless attitude of the civic body personnel, the concerned company officials are so confident that till date they have not fixed any deadline for covering all 55 wards forget about their expansion plan. Out of 13 MTS, only four MTS have been made operational. Notably, construction of MTS is a prime criterion in managing the solid waste service.
Playing the same broken record, Essel Infra, GM, Arun Singh, said, “We just have to streamline MTS construction at different locations. land acquisition is posing a hurdle in taking MTS project ahead. On August 1, additional seven wards (20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26 and 32) will be covered. No deadline has been fixed but the company will complete its 90 percent work in August.”
