Nagpur: Cracking a whip on two agencies engaged in collection of door-to-door garbage in Nagpur City, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has imposed a fine of Rs 2.68 crore for allegedly trying to inflate the tonnage.
M/s A G Enviro and M/s BVG India are tasked with door to door collection of garbage and their 200 trucks were found carrying construction debris that they tried to pass off as garbage. The contractors are potentially swindling huge sums of money by increasing tonnage without actually collecting 100% garbage from the city, it is claimed.
Between February 2020 and May this year, the NMC’s Solid Waste Management Department has caught 202 trucks trying to unload solid waste mixed with construction debris or sand at the Bhandewadi Dumping Yard. According to data obtained from NMC, of the 202 trucks, 155 were of BVG India and 47 of AG Enviro.
Aiming to improve garbage collection, the civic body had engaged AG Enviro (for zones 1 to 5) and BVG India (for zones 6-10) in November 2019 for collection and transportation of garbage from the city to Bhandewadi dumping yard.
Before entering at Bhandewadi Dumping Yard, the vehicle is weighed and then the total weight is adjusted by deducting the total weight of the vehicle to arrive at garbage collected. The agencies get paid as per tonnage for the garbage collected. Some whistleblowers had claimed that the two agencies are adding construction debris and passing off the same as garbage. The scam was detected between February 2020 to May 31, 2022 when the vehicles were checked at Bhandewadi.
The Department of Solid Waste Management of NMC is tasked with handling the garbage matter. As per claims about 155 trucks were of BVG India that were found to be inflating the claim of higher garbage lifting and 47 trucks were that of AG Enviro. About 202 trucks were checked at Bhandewadi in which 1,286 tonnes of building material was found mixed with garbage. NMC has already commissioned a plant at Bhandewadi to process the building material that is lifted from various sites in the city. Yet the agencies are not segregating the building material and garbage, according to reports.
The two operators were contracted at a higher rate than was paid to ousted firm Kanak Resources Management Limited, which provided the door-to-door service for over 10 years. Currently, NMC is paying Rs 1,950 per metric tonne (MT) to AG Enviro and Rs 1,800 per MT to BVG India.
Investigation into this revealed that since the agencies are paid according to per MT garbage lifted, they indulge in such malpractices.
A senior official from the department said, NMC has levied penalties of around Rs 1.31 crore and Rs 1.37 crore on the firms. The civic body has also deployed Nuisance Detection Squad jawans to prevent these malpractices.
