Will Margao municipality continue to extend contract for waste collection?

Will the Margao City Fathers and the Civic Babus explain the status of the door-to-door garbage collection tender floated by the Margao Municipal Council a couple of months ago?

Or, will the MMC continue to give extensions, which has now become a norm than an exception in the municipality, to the two door-to-door waste collection contractors, when lakhs of rupees are being paid to the agencies every year?

When the matter had come up before the council meeting on July 22 last, the City Fathers were united in their demand that the council should extend the contract with the existing agencies, Green Globe and Ms Bapu Environment Services, by three months.

The three-month period ends in October 2022, but the moot question, however, remains unanswered is – whether the civic body will complete the codal formalities in the next two months given that one month is over or will it resort to the time-tested norm of granting extensions to the two agencies for a further three months.

Even MMC officials have no information offhand of how many times the agencies have bagged the extension from the civic body since the expiry of their one-year contract, suggesting that it has become a norm than an exception for reasons best known to the City Fathers and the Babus.

Sources in the MMC told The Goan that the extended contract of Green Globe and Ms Bapu Environment Services was scheduled to expire on July 31, 2022. At the July 22 MMC meeting, the City Fathers resolved to give another three-month extension to the agencies, which will now expire on October 31, 2022. The reason cited for extending the existing contract is that though the MMC had floated a fresh tender and files were sent to the Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA), the agency replied to the civic body saying they have rejected the tender citing discrepancy.

Incidentally, the civic body had resolved at the July 22 meeting to the existing contractors on the plea that it may require some time to complete the procedure. The question that has come to haunt the civic officials is whether MMC has initiated the procedure to shortlist the contractors since the extended period will last till October 2022.

The Goan understands that though the council had adopted the resolution on July 22 last to extend the contract of the existing contractors by a further period of three months, the contractors are yet to get the order from the civic body to date although one month has elapsed since the time the council had taken the decision.

What’s interesting to note is that the MMC had been literally extending the door-to-door garbage collection contract of the two agencies for the last several months despite criticism from civil society.

In fact, the Shadow Council for Margao had threatened to drag the civic body to the Lokayukta for making payments to the two agencies running into crores of rupees when the rules mandate the municipality to comply with the codal formalities.