Ahead of polls, corporators seek dust bins for their wards

After a Shiv Sena Corporator demanded to distribute separate dustbins to segregate wet and dry waste in all wards and provide bins before elections, the civic body has floated the tenders worth Rs 10.35 lakh to buy dustbins which will be given to the newly elected corporators after the elections.

Shiv Sena Corporator Ramesh Korgaonkar said, “I have been demanding separate bins for wet and dry waste. Each ward has more than 15,000 households and on daily basis the amount of garbage generated is also more. Also there is a need to educate the citizens on segregating the waste.”

The civic officials tabled an estimated amount of the total cost of wet and dry waste bins of 120 and 140 litres which will be around Rs 25crore. The contract for the same will be awarded to one contractor against which corporators raised their voices and demanded it to be given to multiple contractors.

Additional Municipal Commissioner Sanjay Deshmukh said, “Each ward will be given 4,000 bins and we will be taking 3 lakh bins from the contractor every month.”

Opposing this leader of the house Trushna Vishwarao said, “4,000 bins will not be enough for each ward. We require 10,000 bins per corporator. There are 227 corporators and each household generates waste which cannot be measured or given a limitation. Why to fall in to a situation where there is a shortage of bins? Let us be prepared as some wards have big housing societies where the number of bins required is more.”

“We will try to provide 1lakh bins to each ward every month,” added Deshmukh.

This led to the rising of voices by the corporators saying that the civic administration has been misleading them by saying1 lakh bins to each ward in a month and in turn it will take ten months for 10 lakh bins and in three months there are elections.