Mangaluru City Corporation clueless about operation and maintenance of over 100 new vehicles purchased for collection and transportation of garbage

MANGALURU After scrapping its four-package solid waste management bidding (tender) process last week to select contractors to collect and transport garbage, Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) is now clueless about how to operate and maintain over 100 vehicles purchased by it recently for the purpose as selection of a new contractor or contractors will be delayed further.

After scrapping its four-package solid waste management bidding (tender) process last week to select contractors to collect and transport garbage, Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) is now clueless about how to operate and maintain over 100 vehicles purchased by it recently for the purpose as selection of a new contractor or contractors will be delayed further.

Sources in the corporation told The Hindu that the 177 vehicles purchased by the civic body included 107 hydraulic jeep tippers, 30 tipper trucks, 16 compactors, and 24 battery-operated tricycles. Of them, more than 100 vehicles, mainly hydraulic jeep tippers, have now been delivered. The corporation is in the process of accepting the delivery of the remaining vehicles.

An official of the corporation told The Hindu that the civic body does not have drivers to operate them and does not have its own arrangement to park all of them. At present, a majority of the vehicles are on the premises of the automobile dealer who delivered them. The dealer is insisting that the civic body take them out for lack of space. They have been parked without any shelter. The chances of new vehicles getting rusted without operation and maintenance are high.

Those vehicles purchased, under the ₹27.15-crore Swachh Bharat Mission grants, are meant for collecting and transporting solid waste from the city to the compost plant at Pachchanady by the new contractor or contractors to be selected. The selection of a contractor or contractors is required as the seven-year contract term of Antony Waste Handling Cell Pvt. Ltd., which collected and transported garbage in the city, ended on January 31, 2022. Since then, the contract of the company was extended, twice, till July 31, 2023. The approval of the government for the third extension, till January 31, 2024, as sought by the corporation, is awaited.

The council of the civic body in its meeting on September 26 resolved to drop the bidding process initiated to select new contractors for one-year term under four packages by dividing 60 wards into four zones. By then the civic body had selected contractors for two zones and issued a letter of acceptance (LoA) to them. Those contractors were supposed to operate and maintain the vehicles supplied by the corporation by appointing the drivers, loaders, and helpers on own.

With the last week’s decision of the council, there is no clarity with the corporation on how to maintain the vehicles supplied. None of the councillors raised this issue when the council unanimously took the decision last Tuesday.

Mayor Sudheer Shetty Kannur said the civic body was yet to chalk out a plan for the operation and maintenance of new vehicles till the new contractor (or contractors) was selected.