MCG takes steps to ensure quick resumption of work after lockdown

A decision in this regard was taken during a two-hour video conference of senior MCG officials and 35 councillors on Tuesday evening.

To ensure that all on-ground civic work, including cleaning of stormwater and sewage drains, can start after the lockdown to contain Covid-19 ends, the Municipal Corporation of Gurguram (MCG) has decided to initiate allocation of e-tenders to contractors.

ACP Karan Goel gives instructions to a police team deployed outside the Laburnum Condominium containment area at Sushant Lok-1 near IFFCO Chowk metro station, on day seventeen of the 21-day nationwide lockdown to check the spread of coronavirus, in Gurugram, India, on Friday, April 10, 2020. (Parveen Kumar/Hindustan Times)

A decision in this regard was taken during a two-hour video conference of senior MCG officials and 35 councillors on Tuesday evening.

MCG officials said that they want to be in a position where on-ground civic and infrastructure work can be resumed on an expedited basis immediately after the lockdown is lifted. In the interim, all formalities for the allocation of tenders, a time-consuming process, can be finished, said officials.

“We want to ensure there is no time wasted in restarting civic amenities. Hence, we are looking to allot the maximum amount of tenders in this lockdown phase so that work can immediately start whenever the lockdown is lifted,” said Vinay Pratap Singh, commissioner, MCG.

An MCG official privy to the development said that if the Central government lifts the lockdown after May 3, they will have less than two months to clean stormwater and sewerage drains before the arrival of monsoon and hence, want to take up all related works on a priority.

The MCG has a 501-kilometre network of sewerage and 350-km network of stormwater drains in the city. Cleaning of drains has been a major problem in the past.

Last May, the MCG and the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) took a last-minute decision to jointly clean stormwater drains across the city after realising that tenders for doing so in many areas had not been floated and there may not be enough time to de-silt them.

Eventually, the two public bodies prioritised cleaning stormwater drains in areas where waterlogging was previously reported, as a result of which 109 kilometres of the stormwater drains could not be de-silted.

On March 21, the MCG commissioner had directed all officials to solely focus on ensuring that essential municipal services, such as sanitation, water, sewage and streetlights continue to operate uninterrupted during the lockdown.

During Tuesday’s meeting, the same directions were reiterated, and instructions were issued to ensure that food supply and medical services remain continuous for migrant workers, homeless and others living at the MCG’s relief centres.