3 days ago
GHMC to hand over sanitation at tourist sites to private agencies
The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation is repeating its experiment of handing over the sanitation in places of tourist importance to private agencies.
On Wednesday, request for proposal has been notified for consultants, for 'Achieving Sanitation Standards and Upkeep of Tourist Places in GHMC through Specialized Agencies on Outsourcing' in five circles of the Khairatabad Zone.
The circles are Mehdipatnam, Karwan, Goshamahal, Khairatabad and Jubilee Hills, for which the total estimated contract value is placed at over ₹23.32 crore.
The RFP document states that the commercial establishments in and around the tourist destination dump litter and solid waste on the roads even after the sanitation workers have swept and cleared the same. The litter spreads around due to wind and becomes an eyesore to the local, national and international tourists, affecting the reputation of the tourist destination, apart from creating insanitary conditions.
Further, the pedestrians, hawkers, shopkeepers and commuters too litter the roads which is not removed till the next day. Posters, and banners worsen the situation, which mandates 24x7 surveillance with dedicated staff in three shifts, the document says.
Responsibilities of the agency include, among others, deploying enough manpower - including sweeping staff, litter pickers, and supervisory officials, deployment of vehicles, machinery, tools and consumables, providing PPE for the staff, ensuring cleanliness of the assigned stretches, transportation of the waste to the secondary collection and storage points, ensuring that all the residential and commercial buildings are attached to the Swachh Auto Trolley drivers or authorised waste collectors, conducting awareness activities in the surrounding areas about proper solid waste management procedures, preventing defacing of the public properties, placing 100 litre capacity twin litter bins at locations specified by the corporation, upkeep and maintenance of existing public toilets on charge per use basis, and even to construct new public toilets as per the need or based on the gap assessment done by the GHMC, for which the cost will be borne by the GHMC.
The agency should also provide purified drinking water kiosks at the locations specified by GHMC, for which no payment will be made. However, user charges may be collected from the consumers for collecting water from the kiosks, which will be fixed by the GHMC.
