How pandemic impacted civic work, pollution control in Gurugram

For the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG), the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic not only affected its external operations but also its internal functioning.

For the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG), the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic not only affected its external operations but also its internal functioning.

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On two consecutive days in August this year, the city witnessed heavy waterlogging – a phenomenon that was second only to the infamous Gurujam in 2016. A major reason for this was the delay in starting the preparations for the monsoon season that left the city vulnerable to heavy rain.

Later in the year, the civic body also sacked 557 outsourced employees — the highest in its 12 years of existence. Officially, the reason for sacking was administrative in nature. But those privy to the matter said that the ousting was meant to offset the financial crunch caused by its declining revenue.

With the pandemic raging across the city, the civic body’s field visits also reduced. Consequently, enforcement measures on key issues, such as the Graded Response Action Plan (Grap) measures, saw a major dip as compared to the last year.

Cleaning of drains

Normally, around late March, the MCG starts floating tenders for the upcoming monsoon season. The process of floating tenders, receiving bids and finalising a contractor usually take around two months to complete. By May, on-ground work for desilting of drains starts.

However, this year, the nationwide lockdown imposed in March to curb the spread of Covid-19 deeply impacted the civic body’s preparations for the monsoon season.

All MCG officials received an internal order to solely focus on ensuring that essential municipal services, such as sanitation, water, sewage and streetlights continue to operate uninterrupted while some staff members were reallocated for medical, shelter, and food supply services.

It was only in late April, that the matter for allocating e-tenders for the upcoming monsoon season was raised during a meeting between senior MCG officials and councillors.

The MCG only started the tendering process in May, at a time when cleaning operations on-ground should have already started.

In many areas in the city, tenders were only allocated to contractors as late as July, when the monsoon season had already arrived. In fact, in some parts of the city, tenders for cleaning up drains were never floated altogether and some of the drains were left completely uncovered.

Even in areas where tenders were allocated, work progressed at a snail’s pace as contractors faced a massive workforce shortage. A large number of migrant workers had returned to their home towns during the lockdown. The time taken for cleaning one leg of a drain, which used to take around 15 days, doubled, and the city’s preparedness was 40-45% weaker than it usually is when the monsoon arrived.

The city was worst hit by rains on August 19 and 20, when a heavy downpour clogged the drains and left the city’s seven underpasses inundated and most of the roads under water. Such was the extent of the poor monsoon preparedness that it took officials more than 30 hours to clear the rainwater from the DLF Phase 1/Phase 4 underpass.

557 employees sacked

Over a four-day period in September, the civic body sacked 557 of its outsourced workers deputed at its various wings. This was the highest number of terminations carried out by the MCG since its formation in 2008.

The official reason cited by the civic body was that the workers were found to be in “surplus” to requirement.

However, officials privy to the matter said that declining revenue prompted the civic body to take off 557 workers of its payroll. The MCG’s main source of income is property tax collection. Each financial year, the MCG nets around₹300 crore through property taxes.

At the start of the financial year, MCG managed to collect only a paltry sum of₹12 lakh in April and May cumulatively. On average, MCG has monthly revenue of₹15-20 crore through property taxes.

Although the MCG’s property tax collection started faring better from May onwards, the loss of revenue for two months led the civic body to explore various cost-cutting measures.

Decline in Grap enforcement

With its officials reducing field visits amidst the Covid-19 outbreak, the enforcement and vigilance measures regarding violation of environmental norms also took a hit.

So far this year, the MCG’s issuance of fines for Grap violations has come down by 58%.

As per official MCG data, between October 15 and December 1 this year, the MCG had issued only 267 fines for Grap violations. For the same time period last year, the civic body had issued 643 fines.

The drop in Grap violations was even more startling, given the fact that MCG this year had increased its vigilance measures. In October, the MCG formed civil defence teams assigned with the task of surveying and monitoring Grap violations. It also started the city’s first air lab for analysing the data for the city’s 24 air quality monitors and accordingly alerting enforcement wing officials on-ground whenever a spike in localised air pollution levels was observed. Some common violations of Grap measures include open waste burning or large-scale construction activities.

Additionally, the MCG also set deadlines for its officials to address civic complaints related to Grap violations. The MCG set a four-hour deadline for its officials to address any complaint related to garbage burning and uncovered construction materials and a 12-hour one for any matter pertaining to construction and demolition waste (C&D) waste.

“Despite the setbacks and the complications arising from Covid-19, the MCG has remained committed to improving the city’s infrastructure and has prioritised the safety and health of the public in general. Our main aim this year was on executing operations to limit the spread of Covid-19 and provide food and medical aid to people who were the worst-hit by this virus. We also ensured that essential civic services remained available throughout the year. Even though non-essential civic matters will become secondary for a limited time period in the upcoming year, the MCG will ensure that the city continues to develop and operations gradually return back to normalcy,” said Vinay Pratap Singh, commissioner, MCG.