garbage contractors

BMC

solid waste

civic body

Congress legislator Aslam Shaikh

Rais Shaikh

Samajwadi Party

2 of the 10 firms that are under scanner frontrunners to bag fresh contracts.Unscrupulous, who pulled a fast one on theby transporting construction debris instead ofearlier this year, are back in business. And it’s all because thehas not blacklisted them formally and hence, cannot prevent them from bidding for fresh contracts. The contracts are worth around Rs 600 crore.In September this year, after being made to realise that it had been duped, the BMC registered police complaints against five garbage contractors, and issued show cause notices to all seven companies involved in the transporting garbage to collection centres. Now, according to documents accessed by this newspaper, two of the 10 firms that were under the scanner — Do IT-D Con (JV) and MK Enterprises (JV) — are set to bag fresh contracts.The opposition in the BMC has alleged that the civic body’s Solid Waste Management (SWM) department, led by additional municipal commissioner Vijay Singhal, had provided the tainted contractors a backdoor entry into the bidding process.“This is a clear case of connivance. We had demanded a SIT probe into the debris transport scam. It looks like there has been a deliberate delay to favour the contractors,” said. In July this year Shaikh had written to civic chief Ajoy Mehta, complaining that his “investigations” had revealed that trucks carrying garbage from different parts of the city submitted documents that said that the vehicles weighed exactly the same on different dates at various BMC- certified weighing scales.group leader in the BMC, told Mirror that FIRs filed against the contractors were merely a charade. “We will press the standing committee to reject all these tenders given to tainted contractors.”In August SWM officials received information about several contractors who mixed construction debris with solid waste so as to “increase” the weight of the garbage they were dumping. The BMC had then ordered videographing the process of dumpers unloading the garbage at collection stations. Garbage contractors hired at the four refuse transport centres are paid on the basis of the weight of the garbage collected from various areas. As part of the Vehicular Tracking system, the dumpers are weighed at the entrance of the refuse transport stations and drivers are provided a receipt of the same each time.Contractors are paid Rs 40 per tonne for debris and construction waste, but the civic body pays them Rs 875 per ton of solid waste (wet and dry). Last month, the BMC standing committee rejected the civic administration's proposal to award a garbage transportation contract to Ms Kaviraj MBB Waste Management, since it was blacklisted in a desilting scam. Kaviraj MBB Waste Management is run by the same family that manages Shree Kaviraj Infratech, which has been blacklisted by the BMC for seven years.When contacted, Vijay Singhal said that the contractors were not blacklisted yet. “Since they haven’t been officially blacklisted, they can bid for works as per rules.”