Khattar conducts surprise visit to Gurugram areas, penalises civic officials

Manohar Lal Khattar Khattar imposed a fine of ₹10 on supervisor of sanitation workers, ₹1,000 on field officer, ₹2,000 on additional sanitary inspector, ₹3,000 on senior sanitary inspector, and ₹5,000 along with a month’s salary on joint commissioner of zone-2

GURUGRAM: Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar conducted a surprise check in various locations across Gurugram on Thursday and imposed penalties on Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) officials for the poor sanitation in the city, officials aware of the matter said.

Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar takes stock of the cleanliness system in Gurugram on Thursday (ANI)

Khattar docked 15 days’ salary of the MCG commissioner and one month’s salary of the joint commissioner after finding garbage piles in various locations in the city.

Officials said the city was struggling with a major garbage crisis as 2,000 sanitation workers have been on strike for months, and the private companies hired to do the job were dumping waste at random locations.

Khattar was in Gurugram for a private event but later conducted a surprise visit to areas such as Kanhai, Sector 18 industrial area, Atul Kataria Chowk, Palam Vihar, Old Delhi-Gurgaon Road, Gurudwara Road, and Civil Lines.

“I found garbage piles in several locations. We have also received complaints from many residents about this issue,” said Khattar.

Khattar also imposed a fine of ₹10 on the supervisor of sanitation workers, ₹1,000 on field officer, ₹2,000 on additional sanitary inspector, ₹3,000 on senior sanitary inspector, and ₹5,000 along with a month’s salary on joint commissioner of zone-2.

Khattar also levied a fine of ₹1 lakh on the agency responsible for maintaining cleanliness on Kanhai Road.

“We have conducted cleanliness drives and cleared major areas, but because of problems with door-to-door waste collection, many residents are throwing waste in the open,” said MCG commissioner PC Meena.

Khattar also announced that he would give ₹1 crore to MCG from CSR fund for purchasing equipment required for sanitation. He also ordered that salaries of sanitation workers in Palam Vihar are to be released in the next three days.

Meanwhile, residents of several sectors said that new dumping sites have come up in their areas due to poor waste collection. They said that waste is being dumped in vacant land plots in areas such as Ardee City, Sector 45, 46, Sector 57 , 21, and 23.

Joginder Singh, president of the United Gurugram Residents’ Welfare Association, an umbrella body of all the RWAs in the city, said the situation worsening. and the number of vehicles collecting garbage has reduced in the last two months. “We have decided to hire private agencies to collect door-to-door waste in areas with poor collection facilities. We were already paying, but now we will pay to only those who collect timely waste,” he said.

Kusum Sharma, a resident of Suncity Township in Sector 54, said areas close to schools had become dumpyards.

“We have highlighted the waste issue several times and have shared pictures and videos, but MCG officials have never taken it seriously and have always ignored resulting in poor sanitation in the city,” she said.