The Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) council in its meeting on Saturday decided to urge the government to extend the contract of Antony Waste Handling Cell Pvt. Ltd., which is managing the collection and transportation of solid waste for the corporation, with the civic body by six more months, from February 1, 2023 to July 31, 2023.
Earlier, the government had extended the contract of the company by one year from February 1, 2022 to January 31, 2023, after the seven-year contract ended on January 31, 2022. The extension was given for enabling the corporation to put in its revised solid waste management plan, by recruiting permanent pourakarmikas and by purchasing required vehicles, machinery and equipment, in place by then.
An agenda tabled in the council on the matter said that a detailed project report (DPR) on the revised solid waste management plan has been approved by a State-level technical committee. It is now awaiting the approval of a high-powered committee of the government. Once the latter clears it, the corporation will purchase the vehicles and other equipment as per its revised plan.
Since this process, which involved inviting bids for their purchase, took some time and can’t be completed in the remaining three months, as the one-year extension of the firm will end by January end next, there is a need to further extend the contract period with the company. Otherwise the civic body did not have any other alternative arrangements in place to collect and transport the solid waste from 60 wards from February, 2023.
The corporation said that the Deputy Commissioner of Dakshina Kannada has already recruited 111 pourakarmikas for the corporation on a permanent basis. They are now on duty at the corporation. which has taken steps for appointing other pourakarmikas on contract.
The civic body said that if the contract was to be extended by six more months the civic body will have to shell out ₹14.89 crore to the company (estimation of contract cost excluding MCC recruited labourers) or ₹21.1 crore (including the labour cost as per the existing rate of contract).
