The stench of the rift between Ranchi Municipal Corporation–A2Z has reached the doors of the Urban Development Department. And officials of the department are suggesting that the department will intervene at any time.
There are many localities in the city that have not been visited by A2Z people for more than a week. Garbage has piled up in streets and the exit gates of homes.
“It has been a week since A2Z persons visited this locality. Garbage heap has piled up in my home. It is difficult now to live. I called the phone number of supervisor, it was found switched off. I am afraid, diseases might break out,” complained BP Singh, an Indrapuri locality resident.
This has happened because A2Z is under severe staff crisis, though the management of the company doesn’t agree with it, understandably. Three months back, the company had affected job cuts throwing out around 200 employees. Simultaneously it announced salary cuts of rest of the labourers. These majors were taken as austerity measure of A2Z.
Some of the labourers confide that they were disenchanted with the company for the salary cut it had affected. That is why, they suggest, they are unwilling to come out and collect the garbage from homes.
However, Ashish, an A2Z supervisor defended himself and the company saying that all the labourers are as punctual as early and they were attending to their duties on regular basis.
But then the unwillingness of the labourers is manifested in rising mound of garbage inside homes and around streets and roads. The situation has become grim even in the homes of Urban Development Department officials.
“You are talking about homes and streets in other localities and I am telling you situation in our homes are no different. I don’t know what these two agencies are cooking with each other,” said an official in Urban Development Department.
The deterioration is also attributed to broken logistics that A2Z owns.
“There are 15 compactors out of which not more than eight are functional. As per the A2Z-RMC agreement between 25-26 tractors are to run in the city for collecting garbage but today you will not see more than 18 tractors. Similarly there has to be 55 Tata vehicles - one for each ward - but not more than 47-48 vehicles run. Rest vehicles are broken and biting dust at Nagababa Khatal. The dysfunctional and broken vehicles are not repaired to save money,” a mid-level A2Z official said.