Team Herald
MARGAO: Raising concerns about non-payment and failure of the municipality to provide them support in terms of additional bins, Dosti Self Help Group that was contracted for door-to-door garbage collection in the two wards of Colmorod has written to the Margao Municipal Council demanding that their issues be addressed.
In a letter addressed to the chief officer, they brought before the municipality the various grievances and hardships they face during door-to-door waste collection. They recalled that it was also announced publicly, a year back that Rs 10,000 would be provided to each group for their incidental expenditures. They complained that however till date no such amount has been credited into their account. So also the council has not been able to provide the basic essentials like gloves, masks etc.
According to the letter, the SHG has not been provided with sufficient number of 240-litre bins, as such, in the course of waste collection, once the bins are filled “our workers cannot proceed further until they are emptied,” resulting in loss of precious time.
They further complained that the in the absence of trucks to lift the waste collected by workers, and the consequent delay in further collection, the residents complain over the irregular time “as such we request you to kindly arrange for empting of the bins immediately after collection so that a regular time can be maintained.”
They also pointed out that, “very often the bins lie at collection points without being emptied throughout the day. Due to this stray cattle or dogs throw the waste down and create nuisance for the residents nearby and eventually our workers get abused for no fault of theirs.”
They also observed that since the bins are not emptied till the next day, “our workers are delayed from commencing waste collection on the following day.”
“As you are aware that waste collection is a challenging job, and more over since our workers will have to face the ire of the people at the time of collection of fees, we kindly request you to look into the matter so that the workers get paid for the hard work that they put in for MMC,” reads the letter
They lamented that nothing had happened regarding their repeated requests for the setting up a collection point.
