BMC

M/s Guru Kripa

civic contractor

Juhu Beach

M/s TechnoTrade

Juhu Beach Cleanliness Monitoring Committeee

JBCMC

awards— whose current joint venture with TechnoTrade to clean the beach ends this year — fresh tender of Rs 21crore, in partnership with Rishab Associates.The BMC has re-awarded ait had previously penalised for non-performance a new six-year contract to clean upM/s Guru Kripa, in joint ventures with, whose current contract to clean the beach ends this year, has been penalised on multiple occasions by the civic body for shoddy work. The latter firm, Technotrade, was even blacklisted in the past.But the new tender to clean Juhu Beach worth Rs 21 crore has now gone to M/s Guru Kripa, this time in a joint venture with another firm, Rishab Associates.Residents on the BMC-appointed), and local BJP MLA Ameet Satam, noticed the anomaly and have demanded that the BMC recall the tender."Guru Kripa happens to be a bird of the same feather from the existing contractor entity. This cannot be permitted. All users of Juhu Beach have complained about the bad performance of this contractor. I have demanded that this tender be recalled," said Satam.Spectron Engineers (P) Ltd, which had also entered a bid, lost the tender to M/s Rishab Guru Kripa by a margin of Rs 40."Guru Kripa, in partnership with a different firm, has only worn a new hat and entered the bidding process. The contractor had not done justice to the beach-cleaning process in the past. Every month, they were fined at least Rs 1 lakh by the BMC for doing a shoddy job, and even their beach combers were not functioning. Even during the monsoon, their cleaning wasn't up to the mark. Walkers on Juhu Beach would keep daily tabs to ensure that there were 45 workers on the beach," said JBMCC member Mehajabeen Barwani.Another member, Zahida Banatwalla, said one of the clauses in the beach-cleaning contract was that even if one of the directors of the blacklisted company is part of the joint venture company, he isn't even allowed to bid."We have done our research and are thorough about it. Rs 8.5 lakh monthly is due to the contractor by the BMC as per the contract terms, but Rs 2.5 lakh will get deducted for poor services. If M/s Guru Kripa was doing a good job, why would he lose money? Also, while we keep talking about cleaning the beach, the secret to cleaning the beach lies in cleaning the nullahs. If the nullahs are clean, there will be no need to clean the beach," Banatwalla said.Contractor Yeshwant Salvi of M/s Guru Kripa told Mirror: "I will no longer deal with TechnoTrade. I have bagged a contract of Rs 21crore for six years with Rishab Associates. For one day's cleaning, we will get Rs 95,000, and Rs 1.05 lakh during the monsoon. This time, we have increased the machinery and compactors. There will be tractors with trollies too."V Balamwar, deputy municipal commissioner, solid waste management, was unavailable for comment.