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Mohali mayor presses for floating tenders for mechanical sweeping
Blaming the delay in floating tenders pertaining to mechanical sweeping for the poor ranking of the district, Mohali mayor Amarjit Singh Sidhu said in the absence of mechanical sweeping, the beauty of the city is getting affected
Two days after faring badly in the 2022 cleanliness survey, Mohali mayor Amarjit Singh Sidhu on Monday wrote to the principal secretary, department of local government, Punjab, to direct MC commissioner Navjot Kaur to immediately float tenders for mechanical sweeping.
Notably, Mohali slipped 32 notches from last year’s 81st rank to 113th spot among 382 cities in the one to 10 lakh category.
Blaming the delay in floating tenders pertaining to mechanical sweeping for the poor ranking of the district, Sidhu said in the absence of mechanical sweeping, the beauty of the city is getting affected.
According to the mayor, the tender for mechanical and manual sweeping expired on June 14, 2021, following which the MC, Mohali, passed a resolution of getting the sweeping of the A and B category roads (main roads) through mechanical sweeping.
“After approval of the authorities concerned on April 7, 2022, to float tenders for mechanical sweeping, tenders were recalled twice but the process got stuck due to technical reasons,” the mayor said.
He added that the director, department of local government, Punjab, on June 26, 2022, also directed the local bodies department to go ahead with the process under the Punjab Transparency in Public Procurement Rule, 2022, but to no avail as tenders in this regard were not floated till date.
The mayor pressing for mechanical sweeping in his letter submitted that the manual tenders for sweeping would also expire next month which would further worsen the cleanliness condition in the city.
While talking to HT, the mayor said, “We don’t have ample manpower to clean the city and there is already a financial crisis to pay salaries or to deploy more men. We have held numerous meetings regarding the same with the MC commissioner and other officials concerned but to no avail. They should immediately call the tenders and allot them to improve our ranking”.
Meanwhile, MC commissioner Navjot Kaur couldn’t be reached for comments on the issue.
On other hand, deputy mayor Kuljit Singh Bedi claimed that earlier the price for cleaning the roads through mechanical sweeping was brought down from ₹1,650 per KM to ₹700 per KM.
After scoring 58.5% marks last year with a 3,510 out of 6,000 score, the city degraded its performance to 53.8% with 4,036 out of 7,500 marks in the cleanliness survey released on Saturday.
Even at the state level, Mohali dropped from the second to the third position since last year, with Ferozepur and Abohar clinching the top spots.
On the certifications front, Mohali scored a zero for a “garbage-free city” amid no manual cleaning of roads for months and a shortage of sanitation staff.
After a decline in cleanliness ranking, local AAP MLA Kulwant Singh demanded the mayor’s resignation accusing him of failing to perform his duties.
