PATNA: The residents of state capital are likely to face inconvenience over the next couple of months following the Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) decision recently to suspend the contract of two agencies which had been entrusted with the task of door-to-door garbage collection in the city.Sources said PMC seems undecided whether to get door-to-door garbage collection done by its own sanitation staff or outsource the work till a new firm is finalized. “PMC has 4,000 sanitation workers, including permanent and daily wagers. As of now, 100 sanitation workers are collecting garbage from five wards across the city. We are yet to decide whether the PMC sanitation workers should collect garbage or the work be outsourced,” Patna mayor Sita Sahu told this newspaper on Sunday.She, however, said the work would most likely be outsourced. Working on public-private partnership (PPP) mode, Nishka Security and Intelligence Services and Patheya People’s Association for Total Help and Youth Applause were engaged for garbage collection across the city in 2017. However, PMC’s standing committee on Saturday suspended their contract on charges of irregularities in discharging their duties, she said.Deputy municipal commissioner Vishal Anand said, “The companies failed to perform the assigned duties properly. We discovered that the companies were covering only about 30% houses under door-to-door garbage collection despite taking over the charge of waste management a year ago. We were getting complaints from the residents about irregular garbage collection and improper disposal of waste.”Anand said for carrying out work in a systematic manner, PMC would ensure that the next company to be hired should carry out garbage collection in an ideal manner. “It will take two to three months to complete the process of hiring a new firm. However, major decisions regarding the establishment of alternate solutions for this would be taken by the PMC board in its meeting on May 23,” he said.Residents on the other hand cited unawareness about door-to-door garbage collection. “We have always been giving our garbage to private sweepers because the PMC’s garbage collectors were not regular. Neither PMC ever ensured that the authorized collectors are collecting garbage from locals or not. Meanwhile, private sweepers clean the streets and collect the garbage daily without a gap,” said Archisha Patki of Boring Canal Road area.

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