De-silting of the stormwater drains has become a daunting task for the GHMC ahead of the monsoon season, with few contractors willing to take up the task. As a result, the civic body has found itself in a tight spot, unable to get the job done without compromises.
Silt removal from the drains or nalas, though a year-round chore, is intensified during summer months starting from February-March up to May-June, in order to prepare the channels for evacuation of huge amounts of surplus water from various tanks and residential colonies.
As the job is labour intensive and requires one to get the hands dirty, the number of bidders has been coming down gradually. GHMC’s terms and conditions have not made it any easier.
“The contractors are required to transport the waste removed from the drains to the solid waste management facility at Jawahar Nagar. But they are reluctant to do the same, citing long distance,” shared a senior Engineering official from GHMC.
Instead, they are offering to transfer the waste at the nearest garbage dump. However, payments to the contractors are made based on the quantity of silt removed, and none except the SWM facility at Jawaharnagar has a weigh bridge to quantify the waste.
Contractors often end up doing a shoddy job of clearing the nalas, but are claiming payments for more than the actual waste retrieved.
“The nala in our area is very deep, but de-silting is only half done every time. As a result, during heavy rains, water juts out from every catch-pit, inundating the whole area,” complains Satyanarayana, a resident of Chintal Basti.
No machinery is deployed, as the silt gets very hard due to accumulation for a long time, and machines fail to do the required job in closed drains, say officials. Besides, owing to the open covers of the catch-pits, large amount of waste including plastic gets deposited in the drains. Used articles such as beds, pillows, mattresses, and at times air coolers and televisions too are dumped into open nalas, making it an onerous job to clean them.
GHMC had earlier conducted a drive to collect throwaway articles, so that people refrained from dumping them in nalas.
“They should do it before every monsoon, so that people know better than choking nalas,” feels Kiranmayi, another resident of Chintal Basthi.
The recent tenders for nala de-silting have drawn a blank in several circles, despite multiple calls.
Tenders had to be called 10 times in Uppal and Ramachandrapuram/Patancheru circles, eight times each in Chandanagar, Rajendra Nagar and Mehdipatnam, seven times in Yusufguda, six times each in Begumpet and Jubilee Hills, and five times in Amberpet.
Non-payment of large amounts of dues for previous year’s work is said to be another cause for the lukewarm response.
