Gurgaon: Some city councils have vehemently opposed the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon’s (MCG) plan to hand over the cleaning of the city’s sewer pipes to private agencies at the house meeting on Monday. City councils have questioned the need to contract out private agencies when MCG already has enough plumbing staff.
The move will add to citizenship spending along with salaries paid to employees, they said at the meeting. City councils said that if necessary, contracts should initially only be initiated in some districts. MCG officials, on the other hand, have asked council members not to judge the agency’s work until it has even started working on the ground floor.
Seema Pahuja, Councilor for District 15, said, “Rs 44 lakh has been sanctioned for sewer operation and maintenance (O&M) by private agencies and the expense of sewer workers’ salaries assigned to my community is Rs 37 lakh. So MCG will now spend over Rs 81 lakh on sewer cleaning compared to Rs 20 lakh last year. Why aren’t councilors kept informed when MCG officials formulate guidelines? If the daily sewer cleaning has been outsourced, what will the sewer workers commissioned by the group do? ”
According to an MCG official, the allocation of the sewer O&M work has been delayed as the tendering process had to be withdrawn several times due to a lack of bids. The estimated cost of maintaining the sewer system in all stations is around 23 billion rupees.
Tenders have recently been issued for 32 of 35 municipalities, but work has yet to start. In 2017-18, total sewer cleaning spending was 63 billion rupees, which decreased to 42 billion rupees in 2018-19 and 34 billion rupees in 2020-21.
“After the founding of the MCG, there was no concrete solution to the sewer problem and the award was made according to requirements, which made monitoring difficult. Now we have a consolidated estimate that includes shovel and super suction cleaning and manhole cover replacement, ”said TL Sharma, MCG’s chief engineer. He added, “This will ensure quality service in a cost effective manner. We have also provided penalties in the event that the commissioned agency does not do its work properly. ”
Regarding the question of the takeover of 11 private colonies by MCG, the commissioner has meanwhile instructed the officials to complete the detailed project report on the inadequate infrastructure in these areas by the end of October. Two advisors have been appointed to this end, officials said. The commissioner also instructed officers to prioritize the takeover process of DLF-1, 2 and 3.
In 2016-2019, eight colonies were acquired by MCG. In 2019-20, the company decided to acquire 11 more colonies including Mayfield Garden, Malibu Towne, Vipul World, Sushant Lok-2 and 3, Greenwood City, Rosewood City, Uppal Housing, Ardee City and DLF-4 and 5 .
“The process of transferring colonies has been going on for a long time, and residents suffer from lack of amenities despite having paid all taxes. MCG officials need to speed up the process so that they can use the public services, ”said Mahesh Dayma, councilor of 30th.
After taking over a colony, the civil corporation is to provide utilities such as water, sewage, roads and street lighting according to its plan. The process includes identifying infrastructure gaps and making estimates to complete the work at hand. If the developer does not complete the pending work within a specified time, MCG will carry it out at the developer’s expense.
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