Irfan Tramboo
Srinagar, Nov 28: In a bid to impede the process of Scientific Management of Solid Waste in district Budgam, the Directorate of Urban Local Bodies (ULB) has put a break on a tender floated last year intended at salvaging twin pilot projects which had brought a change with regard to the solid waste management in the district that kick-started in 2016.
Aiming at starting the waste management on scientific lines, an Expression of Interest (EoI) for a 4-month pilot project was put out in June, 2016 which later started in November, 2016 and subsequently ended in February 2017. The project was implemented by the Municipal Committee, Budgam with the help of an NGO from Indore.
The pilot run was carried out for four months and bore good results as people as well as the members of the Municipal Committee were trained. “People were made aware during the course of the pilot project; and they were doing what they were told to do and there was a change on the ground,” an official privy to the developments said.
Interestingly, what the Directorate did after the completion of the first pilot project, it again floated an EoI for another round of pilot project which again lasted for four months. The pilot project was started in June 2017 and it ended in September after completing its duration.
As per the official, the NGO was doing it on no-profit-no-loss basis and was given Rs 75,000/- per month, which amounted to Rs 30-40 per household in 13 wards of the district where the project was started initially.
In order to start the project in its entirety, and after the completion of two pilot projects, the ULB floated another EoI in January, 2018-for one year-however, the same was never executed even after the passage of around two years, owing to various contradictory reasons that are given out.
The administrators in the ULB state various reasons that led to the delay, or finally cancellation of the tender earlier floated by the Directorate. An officer of the Directorate told Excelsior on the condition of anonymity that the EoI did not get the desired response, leading to the delay in the execution of the tender that was floated.
On the other hand, the office of the Executive Engineer, ULB told Excelsior that owing to the shortage of funds, the directions have been passed that there was no need of roping-in any NGO in order to salvage the Solid Waste Management Program started in Budgam.
“We have been directed to train our own staff, rather than floating the EoI every year, which is a recurring thing where we have to pay the agency for executing the program; the funding issue was already there. We have selected one Model Town which is Pahalgam-once that is approved it will be rolled out for other districts as well,” said Abid Ahmad, Technical Officer to the Executive Engineer ULB.
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