Manual road sweeping disrupted across Ggm after tender expires

Residents in Gurugram are questioning the MCG's timing of new road sweeping tenders, fearing disruptions as previous contracts expire without timely replacements.

Residents across Gurugram are questioning the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram’s (MCG) decision to float tenders for manual road sweeping on March 31—the same day the previous contracts expired—raising concerns over disruption in several parts of the city.

According to MCG officials, the civic body is still awaiting bids for the ₹6.8 crore, three-month contract for manual sweeping across four zones in the city.

According to MCG officials, the civic body is still awaiting bids for the ₹6.8 crore, three-month contract for manual sweeping across four zones in the city. The previous contracts, handled by six agencies, had been extended from September 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026 at ₹127 crore.

Residents questioned the timing of floating the tender. “Was the MCG not aware that the contract was set to lapse, or did it not take residents’ concerns seriously? They should have initiated tenders in advance,” Savita Devi, a resident of Sector 46, told HT.

“MCG’s performance regarding sanitation and waste management has remained consistently poor. This is precisely why areas like Ardee City in Sector 52 had to deploy their own workers for regular road sweeping,” said Chaitali Mandhotra, co-convenor of United Gurugram RWAs.

Ward 4 councillor Pradeep Padam highlighted a manpower shortage in his area. “There is a severe shortage of manpower along with a lack of basic equipment. The tender should have been initiated at least two months in advance to avoid such a situation. We need at least 150 workers, but only around 30 are currently reporting for duty,” he said.

Padam said that earlier, MCG officials had stated they would deploy their own workforce across affected areas, however, there is little evidence of this being implemented on the ground.

MCG has a workforce of approximately 3,000 permanent sanitation workers, in addition to over 2,000 personnel engaged on a contractual basis.

Ravindra Yadav, additional commissioner at MCG said that they have asked the agencies to extend their services until the current tender process is completed. “Tenders will be closed by next week. Till then we have asked the current contractors to continue the work and are waiting for the approvals from the contractors,” he said.

Residents have also flagged the poor performance of the previous contractors. “Sector 45 has nearly 25 kilometers of roads, but only three or four sanitation workers are ever seen on duty. So, while the tender may have lapsed, it hardly makes a difference as our sector was never cleaned properly or regularly to begin with,” said Ashwani Dabara, a resident of sector 45.

Neeraj Agarwal, RWA general secretary of Sector 52, said, “Contractors and their workers told us that they will be leaving once their contract is expired, which is why they started to skip work in the last two- three months. Why would they bother to put efforts during the extension period?”

Meanwhile, the MCG’s plan to appoint two private agencies for door-to-door collection of solid waste has also failed to progress, with the tender process facing repeated delays since February. “Initially, agencies raised concerns regarding the terms and conditions of the contract, which contributed to delays. Certain administrative issues have further slowed the process,” said Sundar Sheoran, executive engineer at the MCG.