Solid waste management: City Corporation cautions Antony Company
‘Will cancel contract if work is boycotted’
Mangaluru, June 28: The City Corporation on Thursday warned the Antony Waste Management Company, which is maintaining the solid waste management in the city, of cancelling the contract if it resorted to protest or boycotted the work under the pretext that it will have to get dues from the corporation.
The first general body meeting of the city corporation chaired by mayor Bhaskar Moily here, the city corporation also decided to make alternative arrangements if the company failed to discharge its duty.
Corporators in the meeting expressed their apprehension about the non-disposal of solid waste in the city due to the protest of the Antony Company and its consequences. The Company has been telling that as the city corporation had to give balance amount to the company, its workers go on strike very oftenly. But the city corporation has said that it has to pay one month payment to the company. If it is true, it is very unfortunate that a national level company is blackmailing the city corporation for one month due, said corporator Vijay Kumar Shetty.
Another corporator Dayanand Shetty urged the mayor to black-list the company, while former mayor Harinath alleged that waste disposal in interior parts of the city is not effective.
Responding to it, Commissioner Muhammad Nazeer said that solid waste management is being conducted in two packages in the city. The Antony company is collecting the waste from the door-steps, while Unique Waste Private Limited company is processing the waste. Monthly, the Antony company is being given Rs 2 to Rs 2.20 crore and Unique company is being given Rs 20 to 22 lakh. As claimed by the company, the city corporation does not owe Rs 30 crore to the company, he clarified.
As per the agreement, the Antony company has to sweep the roads using machines, clean the drainages of more than one meter depth and separate the collected garbage. Because the company is not following the agreement norms, the city corporation is slapping penalty and cutting the payment every month and this amount is almost Rs 9 crore. For this, the company has already filed arbitration with the Deputy Commissioner. Out of Rs 9 crore, the company would get just Rs 87 lakh and remaining amount would be given as Escalation expenses to the company. As per this, the city corporation had paid Rs 4.70 crore to the company in January and Rs 5.50 crore is balance. Along with this, the city corporation had to pay May month payment of Rs 2.25 crore. In total, the city corporation has to give Rs 7.75 crore dues to the company, he said.
When the workers stopped the work suddenly, it affected the people in the city. Though it was holiday on the next day, the city corporation had convened an emergency meeting and asked all old contractors to collect the waste in some parts of the city. Later, the company workers called of their protest and resumed their work. If the workers boycotted the work in future, then the city corporation would cancel the contract with it. The corporation has already informed the company as a last warning that it would make alternative arrangement if its workers boycott the work, the commissioner said.
MLAs Vedavyas Kamath and Bharat Shetty, MLC Ivan D’Souza, deputy mayor Muhammad Kunjattabail, standing committee presidents Praveen Chandra Alva, Naveen D’Souza, Latha Salian, Radhakrishna and others were present.
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Congress standing with CM Siddaramaiah, will support him, says party President Kharge
Bengaluru (PTI): Congress President M Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday said the party is standing with Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and will support him as he faces a probe by Lokayukta police in the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) site allotment case.
Rejecting BJP's demand for Siddaramaiah's resignation, he noted that "neither a chargesheet is filed, nor he is convicted," and said, "let the law take its own course, and when a situation comes, the party will examine."
"When the Godhra incident happened, whether (Narendra) Modi ji had resigned (as the then Gujarat CM)? Several cases were also pending against him at that time, even against Mr Shah (Union Home Minister Amit Shah)," Kharge said in response to a question on BJP questioning CM's moral right to continue, with FIR slated to be registered against him.
Speaking to reporters here, he said: "Don't target a particular person to damage his image, through him the party will also be damaged. Your (BJP) interest is to damage the Congress party, not the individual. He may be here today or may not be, the party will continue. Just to destroy the Congress party and the Congress party's base votes, they want to destroy, that is why they are doing this."
Let the law take its own course, and when a situation comes, the party will examine it at that time, he further said. "Now nothing is there, (but) every day I'm seeing that MUDA, MUDA. Crores of rupees (have been) swallowed by industrialists, Rs 16 lakh crore of their debt have been written off, and now you are taking one small issue and fighting. That too neither chargesheet is filed, nor he is convicted. Every day this is news. I'm fed up seeing all these things."
Asked whether the Congress high command will stand with the Chief Minister, even after the registering of FIR, Kharge said: "that is a hypothetical question. We are standing with him, we will support him, because he represents the party, not (an) individual."
A Special Court here on Wednesday ordered a Lokayukta police probe against Siddaramaiah in the case, setting the stage for filing of an FIR against him.
The order of the Special Court Judge, Santhosh Gajanan Bhat, came a day after the High Court upheld the sanction granted by the Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot to conduct an investigation against Siddaramaiah on the allegations of illegalities in the allotment of 14 sites to his wife B M Parvathi by MUDA.
The Special Court exclusively to deal with criminal cases related to former and elected MPs/MLAs issued the order directing the Lokayukta police in Mysuru to initiate an investigation on the complaint filed by RTI activist Snehamayi Krishna.
In the MUDA site allotment case, it is alleged that compensatory sites were allotted to Siddaramaiah's wife in an upmarket area in Mysuru, which had higher property value as compared to the location of her land which had been "acquired" by MUDA.
The MUDA had allotted plots to Parvathi under a 50:50 ratio scheme in lieu of 3.16 acres of her land, where it developed a residential layout.
Under the controversial scheme, MUDA allotted 50 per cent of developed land to the land losers in lieu of undeveloped land acquired from them for forming residential layouts.
It is alleged that Parvathi had no legal title over this 3.16 acres of land at survey number 464 of Kasare village, Kasaba hobli of Mysuru taluk.
