In a move that has riled activists, a draft Solid Waste Management (SWM) policy for urban areas in the State has batted for reversing the July 2017 Cabinet decision to take pourakarmikas on the rolls of Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) to release them from the clutches of contractors.
Prepared by the Directorate for Municipal Administration (DMA), the draft policy argues that privatisation of solid waste management would improve efficiency, attract new technology and save costs.
The 90-page document was uploaded on their website, and officials have circulated the draft policy among stakeholders as well.
The draft explicitly says: “Primary processes in the value chain, such as collection, transport and street sweeping / drain cleaning, can involve private parties through a service contract or management contract... While government of Karnataka has currently prohibited the outsourcing of these activities to private parties, it is recommended that the State evaluates this prohibition.”
This has drawn the ire of pourakarmika unions and SWM activists. “This is a clear collusion to bring back contractors,” said Clifton D Rozario of BBMP Guttige Pourakarmikara Sangha.
Following a protest by pourakarmikas in the city in July 2017, the government under then Chief Minister Siddaramaiah decided to bring pourakarmikas on the rolls of the BBMP instead of private contractors. The driver and helpers of garbage collection vehicles continued to remain employees of the contractors.
The decision was taken following allegations of bogus billing and harassment of pourakarmikas by contractors. The introduction of biometric attendance brought down the number of pourakarmikas on the rolls from 32,000 to around 18,000 in 2018.
“The draft policy seeks to take pourakarmikas back to square one and put them in the clutches of private players. There is no basis on which privatisation is associated with efficiency when, in fact, it has been proven to be extremely corrupt at every level. There is no foundation for any of these conclusions, and they stand contrary to facts,” said Maitreyi Krishnan from the Sangha.
A public consultation meeting over the draft by the BBMP during the last week of December 2018 was cancelled as stakeholders objected to the document not being made public before the meeting.
The DMA recently circulated the draft, but drew sharp criticism from pourakarmika unions and activists.
Responding to criticism, sources said the DMA had uploaded a separate 27-page document on Saturday named ‘Concise policy and strategy on SWM’, which though pushing privatisation of SWM is ‘toned down’ and does not explicitly ask for the government’s decision to be reversed.
However, unions have argued that the new document is misleading as it reads like a summary of the 90-page policy document and also advocates privatisation, and pointed out that the DMA website showcases both documents.
D. Randeep, Special Commissioner, Solid Waste Management, BBMP, said that the civic body is on a path towards building in-house capabilities for SWM. “There is no way we are going to put pourakarmikas back under contractors. In fact, the recent garbage collection and disposal tenders are for a period of only one year as a stop-gap arrangement while we develop infrastructure – vehicles and transfer stations. Once that is done, BBMP will take over collection and disposal operations as well,” he said.