MC moots revocation of garbage charges

With the pilot project for sanitation having been scrapped in Sector 22,the Municipal Corporation is now mooting a proposal for revocation of the charges for collection of garbage from the residential areas. When the project was launched,the civic body had fixed the rates of collection from houses of different sizes. The proposal would come up for discussion at a meeting of the General House to be held on Monday.

The pilot project entailed handing over the system of garbage collection to contractors who,in turn,would hire collectors. The garbage was to be collected,dumped into trolleys and then taken to the garbage processing plant. However,the launch of the system witnessed protests by the garbage collectors. A large number of them camped outside the office of the Municipal Corporation. It was then decided that the project would be scrapped.

After the protests were over,the garbage collectors announced that they would hike the rates for garbage collection. It was decided that an agenda would be mooted to revoke the prices. Since now the garbage collectors would collect the garbage from door-to-door and deposit it in the trolleys,it is being proposed that the segregation of garbage be done at the source.

The pilot project had been launched following the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. However,the hasty manner in which it was started is being touted as the reason for its failure. While the civic body had proposed to replicate this in other areas as well,the scrapping of the project is now proving to be a deterrent.