It is what was feared. There is much more than what meets the eyes in the RMC-A2Z crisis.
The company had been drawing intense criticism from public, media and Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) for its “inefficient and sub-standard” services. The criticism had grown intense in last two months after the new group of ward councillors were elected in Urban Body election held on May 7.
But now A2Z people are challenging the merits in the noises lamenting the poor cleanliness of the city. There had been allegations from RMC officials, media, public and even from the “disenchanted” insiders of A2Z that the services had deteriorated because the company reduced man power, cut salaries of staffs and also didn’t care to repair the broken vehicles and garbage beans.
All these were done because the “company wanted to save money” in the process the cleanliness of the city stood compromised. A2Z officials are now ridiculing all such suggestions of austerity measures. One of the A2Z officials who didn’t want to come on record said that the company was in very bad shape, financially during last months of 2012. But now they are much better, though they are far away from making profit.
“We used to redirect funds from our projects in Uttar Pradesh to sustain Ranchi projects. We incurred around 20-25 lakh loss every month here. But we were forced to close 17 projects when SP government came in power replacing BSP. This left us in no position to sustain Ranchi by redirecting funds from UP. Between September and December 2012 were lowest in services and even planning to leave,” an official said. But how they were able to keep movingIJ
“RMC used to deduct 20 per cent of the garbage collection fees that they owed to us. We requested the then Urban Development Secretary Nitin Madan Kulkarni to release the funds and thankfully he agreed. We got Rs. 3.67 cr. from that fund. We spent around a crore in repairing the broken vehicles and other infrastructures. From April 2013 we are working with full infrastructure support. We have almost same equipments that we had at the beginning of the project,” said the officials. (See the chart.)
The official also claimed that RMC issued Rs. 3.40 lakh in May and Rs 2.50 lakh in June for replacing the tyres and tubes of vehicles. “Additionally on repairing of rickshaws we spent Rs. 6 lakh in last three months. Do you think we are sleepingIJ” asked the passionate official. But why is then huge criticism of A2Z for deteriorating cleanliness and sanitation in the city that interestingly got intense in the last two-three months, interestingly.
“Why this noise intensified in last three months onlyIJ Don’t you know new ward councillors became the part of RMC in last three monthsIJ There was no such noise during December when we were performing the worst. What does this suggest to youIJ While we admit 15-20 percent of deterioration in services but such brouhaha is certainly unfair,” the official explained.