BENGALURU: Former ruling party leader in BBMP Council N R Ramesh has alleged the civic agency is paying an excess of up to Rs 400 crores to garbage contractors and demanded a CBI probe into this.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Ramesh said BBMP spent Rs 659 crore on solid waste management in 2016-17, of which Rs 555 crore was paid to garbage contractors.
The High Court had earlier directed BBMP to cancel the work orders given to private garbage contractors and asked the civic agency to handle the garbage from September 2015. However, BBMP has been paying bills to contractors despite the order, said Ramesh.
He alleged that from February 2017, BBMP’s solid waste management expenses will increase to Rs 856 crore, of which Rs 752 crore will be paid to contractors. “BBMP had spent just Rs 385 crore for the same work before February 2016. This means BBMP is paying Rs 400 crore more to contractors. The High Court had directed BBMP to blacklist some garbage contractors, but the Palike has awarded contracts to the same people who have just changed the name of their agencies,’’ he alleged.
Ramesh added that there were 2,734 permanent BBMP pourakarmikas and 22,176 contract pourakarmikas. The Safai Karmachari Commission, in its recent report, said that the number of contract pourakarmikas was lesser. But BBMP has been paying salaries without cross-checking figures, he alleged.
“Contractors who were supposed to pay ESI and PF of workers have not done so. The case has been handed over to CID by the BBMP Commissioner and officials are behind this scam. A copy of the complaint has been sent to the PMO,’’ said Ramesh.
BBMP Commissioner Manjunath Prasad said he had directed Joint Commissioner (Solid waste Management) to look into the matter and submit a report. “We’ll proceed based on that.”