There seems no end in sight to the city’s garbage woes. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is besieged with a fresh problem with the new garbage disposal tenders failing to attract bidders for the second time.
So what does it mean? The new tender, which was crucial to implement segregation at source, attracted just 14 bids for 151 wards across the city. In December 2015, the civic body received just 37 bids for 98 wards.
Currently, BBMP has “unofficially” sub-contracted solid waste management to contractors, many of whom refused to participate in the new tender, after the expiry of old contracts in 2013. This means that these contractors are participating in the waste management without a contract, sources said.
The tender attracted poor participation in the light of it being seen as “too stringent” by contractors. A senior BBMP official said that the contractor's cartel has been at the forefront of ‘sabotaging’ effective waste management for many years and non-bidding is an attempt to get the regulations in the contract diluted.
The mandatory escrow account, which is part of the new contract, is a bone of contention. The successful contractor has to keep the full sum of the contract amount in an escrow account. Portions can be withdrawn after a third party inspection of the work and bill. Balasubramanyam, a former garbage contractor who did not participate this time, denied cartelisation. He said that the escrow account clause is impossible to work with. “Any clearance of bill in the BBMP is riddled with corruption from the case worker to the councillor. How can all this be managed in an escrow account?” he questioned.
BBMP Commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad said that though the pre-bid meeting saw good participation from contractors, none of them bid for the tenders. However, he refused to comment as to why the contractors haven't bid for the tenders.
