Manesar factory owners, residents concerned over maintenance activities

Factory owners and residents of industrial areas and villages under the jurisdiction of the newly formed Municipal Corporation of Manesar (MCM) expressed concern over maintenance activities, alleging that while the MCM is yet to be equipped to provide services, contracts for existing activities undertaken by other agencies ended on March 31

Factory owners and residents of industrial areas and villages under the jurisdiction of the newly formed Municipal Corporation of Manesar (MCM) expressed concern over maintenance activities, alleging that while the MCM is yet to be equipped to provide services, contracts for existing activities undertaken by other agencies ended on March 31.

HT Image

Industry owners on Sunday said that with fresh contracts being put on hold, the authorities must ensure that the new corporation area is not left struggling due to this confusion.

Pawan Yadav, president, IMT Manesar Industrial Association, said that all tenders of HSIIDC expired on March 31, and HSIIDC has not carried out any re-tendering process as the MCM has taken over the maintenance. “The situation is tricky as the corporation is not yet ready to manage this huge area. In industrial sectors alone, 3.5 lakh (350,000) people work daily. The population in villages is also large and without services, things will go bad,” he said.

However, officials of MCM and HSIIDC dismissed concerns over a dire situation and said they are working with stakeholders to ensure basic services are delivered without a hitch.

Manish Sharma, commissioner, MCM, said that they held a detailed discussion with residents on Sunday and decided that existing operations in villages, residential and industrial sectors will continue. “There is no shortage of resources and workers who were providing these services are continuing to do their job, and they are being paid accordingly. In some areas, due to the change in the situation, there have been instances where the workforce has become lax, but we are going to strictly enforce monitoring. We are also evaluating the performance of agencies in different areas,” said Sharma.

The HSIIDC, meanwhile, will meet factory owners on Tuesday and will propose to continue maintenance in industrial sectors. “Till the time MCM gets ready to take over maintenance, we will provide maintenance services as usual. A meeting is scheduled on Tuesday and a decision in this regard will be taken,” said Subash Vats, estate officer, IMT Manesar, adding that deploying contractors to start work won’t take more than a couple of days.

The MCM includes 29 villages, 12 large industrial sectors of HSIIDC and sectors 75 to 95 along the Southern Peripheral Road (SPR) and Dwarka Expressway.

Locals also said the tenure of the panchayats of the villages is also over and these have neither funds nor authority to carry out maintenance, cleaning or sanitation work.

Factory owners said that the authorities should ensure that the public does not suffer due to lack of communication between MCM and HSIIDC. Manoj Tyagi, general secretary, IMT Industrial Association said that before operationalising the MCM, the government should have designed the structure of the civic agency and hired the staff to execute operations.