The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has extended the contract of Swach, a non-profit responsible for door-to-door waste collection in the city by another month but is also checking out options to appoint other agencies for merged villages.
The plan is to continue with Swach in the old city limits.
Swach is a PMC supported non-profit organization for door-to-door waste collection. PMC renews the contract with Swach every five years, which ended in December 2020.
Based on the complaints of corporators, the PMC standing committee was earlier pursuing bids of other agencies for fair competition in the collection and segregation of garbage in the city. However, due to Covid-19, there was no general body meeting taking place and hence the decision was pending but it was passed in a general body meeting in March 2021 to extend Swach’s contract for two months.
Now, the standing committee has given another one-month extension to Swach on the background of Covid-19 situation.
One of the PMC officials said, “In the coming days, we are working on the proposal to call tenders for merged villages and give extension to Swach in the old city limit areas. In the Covid-19 situation, if we carry the fresh tender for garbage collection of garbage, it will hamper the existing waste collection system. So, without disturbing the existing Swach system, we are working to call tenders for merge areas.”
{{/usCountry}}One of the PMC officials said, “In the coming days, we are working on the proposal to call tenders for merged villages and give extension to Swach in the old city limit areas. In the Covid-19 situation, if we carry the fresh tender for garbage collection of garbage, it will hamper the existing waste collection system. So, without disturbing the existing Swach system, we are working to call tenders for merge areas.”
{{/usCountry}}Hemant Rasane, PMC standing committee chairman said, “The administration demanded to give an extension of three months to Swach. However, we have given an extension by a month and instructed the administration to start a new tender process.”
Kunal Khemnar, PMC additional municipal commissioner said, “We prepared all necessary steps to call fresh tenders for door-to-door waste segregation and collection. Now, the committee has given a month’s extension to Swach. After the merger of 23 villages, we will check the option of appointing other agencies.”
Ajit Deshmukh, head of solid waste department of PMC said, “We have mentioned in the proposal that there is a need to give extension to Swach for five years. On the other side, there will be a merger of 23 new villages in the PMC limit. There is no proper system to collect garbage and Swach is also not covering these areas. Therefore, the administration will have to outsource garbage transportation and collection but, it will take some period.”
Swach covers around 8.5 lakh properties in the city and gets ₹4.5 to ₹5 crore from residents every month in addition to ₹2.5 to ₹3 crore paid annually by PMC as supervision fees.
However, there are numerous complaints from corporators, and some citizens are against Swach workers for not lifting garbage properly.