Sweeping machine project comes to halt in Jalandhar
JALANDHAR: The road cleaning work using sweeping machines, proposed by Jalandhar municipal corporation (MC), has taken a back seat as a part of the payments, to the outsourced firm, since the past few months is pending. Lion Service, a Delhibased firm that was given the work, has not been using the machines to clean roads since past four months.
The long awaited house meeting was held on September 5 and MC paid certain amount to the firm by using the development budget.
An official of the firm, on condition of anonymity, said that the MC owes them ₹2.5 crore. And only ₹40 lakh has been paid.
The civic body had not made any payments since February, but after the September 5 MC House meeting, ₹40 lakh was paid to the firm. Payment of another ₹2.5 crore is still pending.
Under the sweeping machine project, around 100 sanitation workers of the firm are to carry out manual cleanliness work during the day.
“We have decided to suspend work using machines and only do it manually as the civic body has not released the entire amount pending,” the official added.
Municipal commissioner GS Khehra and mayor Sunil Jyoti had introduced the sweeping machines project for cleaning main roads of the city at the cost of ₹30 crore, for five years.
It was the most contentious topic last year, leaving many Congress councillors upset.
Congress councillors, led by Jagdish Raja, had disapproved this decision and moved the civil court against the finance and contract committee (F&CC) for approving this project. Operation and maintenance (O&M) department superintendent engineer Lakhwinder Singh said, “The payments will be released as per the availability of funds.”