Now, garbage scam raises stink in the Palike
Before the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike could exorcise the ghost of fake-bill scam, another financial misappropriation to the tune of Rs 50 crore relating to garbage clearance has come to haunt the civic body.
Scripted jointly by the corporators and the Palike officers, the garbage scam began from September last year and is going on unabated with the help of the loopholes in the previous garbage contract.
The corporators portrayed a grim picture of the cleanliness in their respective wards and made the Palike zonal officers award contracts to the persons of their choice without calling for tenders or signing any agreement with the Palike.
“The saddest part of the entire episode is that the Palike already has a garbage contract in place but the corporators continued to pressure the head office to give ‘second shift contract’ to the persons of their choice,” said a senior BBMP officer.
Holding the Palike-appointed contractors responsible for the poor garbage clearance mechanism, the corporators reportedly pressured the Palike officers to ensure that the garbage is cleared twice or thrice a day.
As the previous contractors did not agree for the new condition, the Palike authorities were compelled to appoint new contractors, who are mostly chosen by the corporators.
In one case, JB Nagar ward corporator Chandrashekar wrote to the superintending engineer of the BBMP East Zone asking him to clear bills of M Obalesh for “sincerely” clearing garbage in the morning and afternoon for the month of October last year.
The heaps of garbage across Bangalore narrate how religiously the new contractors did their job, but the Palike promptly kept paying money to them.
An initial estimate suggests that the Palike has paid roughly between Rs 45 crore to 50 crore in the last 18 months. The scam has largely taken place in almost all the wards of the BBMP South Zone.
The matter came to light when the Palike authorities called the legally appointed contractors to know the reasons for not bidding for the new garbage contract. The contractors then provided documentary evidences of the scam to the BBMP authorities (a copy of which is in possession of Deccan Herald) and said the corporators interfered in their work.
According to Udayashankar, Leader of Opposition, BBMP Council, the root cause of this scam is Deputy Mayor S Harish. “He is not letting the system work. The Palike is neither recruiting sanitation workers, nor it is calling tenders for new garbage contract. The illegal system has been adopted only to benefit a few corporators,” he said.
R Sampath Raj, Corporator, Devara Jeevanahalli, says it is shocking that contract has been awarded flouting all the rules and regulations.
If contracts were awarded without waiting for tenders then the same could have been done for the DJ Halli ward, where garbage problem is very grim due to acute shortage of manpower.
