Firm staff suspend door-to-door garbage collection in many areas

Charanjit Singh Teja

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, January 19

Employees of the firm, which is involved in door-to-door collection of garbage, have suspended the work in various areas of the city. Since Thursday, they have not collected garbage from some localities in the Majitha road area and North constituency. Now, heaps of garbage can be seen in these areas. However, the employees said they were not on strike.

Owing to the non-lifting of garbage, residents of Joshi Colony, Circular Road area, Lawrence Road area, Indira Colony, Guru Arjan Dev Nagar, Putaligar, and Gulmohar Avenue in the Majitha Road area have been facing inconvenience.

Dr Ajay Kanwar, Municipal Health Officer, said, “Though employees are not on strike, they are not lifting garbage properly. As the MC is about to terminate the services of the company, its officials are not getting garbage-lifting vehicles repaired. The vehicles of the company have been lying disuse off as theese are in need of repair. The company officials are deliberately not getting the vehicles repaired.”

According to information, a Dubai-based company will take over the work in February after getting the approval of the House. At present, SL Infra, a solid waste management company, looks after the work of garbage collection.

For the same, the MC had signed a contract with SL Infra for 25 years in August 2016. As per the contract, the company was responsible for door-to-door collection, source segregation, bio-degradation and processing of garbage at the Bhagtanwala dump site. SL Infra has been carrying out only door-to-door collection of garbage and it has failed to perform other tasks due to financial constraints.

There has been a dispute between the MC and SL Infra over performing the tasks mentioned in the contract and payment since 2018. Company officials were of the view that the MC was not paying a pending amount of Rs13 crore. Due to non-payment of salaries, company employees often stop work. The MC had imposed a penalty on the company for suspending the work in the past.