Team Herald
MARGAO: Residents beware! The workers engaged in door to door garbage collection in the jurisdiction of Margao Municipality are reported to be lifting away valuable goods besides the waste from households. Councillors and Sanitary Inspectors have also started receiving complaints from the residents.
The issue pertaining to the lifting of valuable goods by the workers engaged in door-to-door waste collection was discussed at recent MMC meeting. And hence, it has been decided to carry out verification of all the workers engaged in door-to-door waste collection.
Councillor Sidharth Gadekar had complained to the chairperson during the meeting that the daily-wage workers engaged for waste collection by the garbage collection agency were allegedly lifting footwear and other things during the door-to-door collection. Even the sanitary inspector Viraj Arabekar informed the civic body about the issue.
It is pertinent to note that the contract of door-to-door garbage collection has been allotted to a private agency and MMC is annually paying nearly Rs 2.40 crore for the agency. However, no one has the exact record of the workers engaged in the garbage collection work.
The civic body has even admitted that it does not maintain the workers’ record. However, the recent complaints of lifting valuable goods from the households of residents have raised serious questions about the identity of these workers.
At the moment, the civic body has resolved to conduct verification drives of all the workers so that they should be held responsible for issues pertaining to robberies and thefts.
