Heaps of garbage could be seen strewn in the federal capital despite allocation of funds amounting to Rs 340 million annually by the Capital Development Authority (CDA).
CDA has outsourced cleanliness responsibility to contractors and originally around 1,500 sweepers had been deputed for the cleanliness work, however, their strength has shrunk to 600 as contractors have laid off most sanitary workers to save money.
During a visit to several sectors it transpired that heaps of garbage and unattended filth have made their permanent presence felt as in some sectors trash could not be lifted for even weeks.
The city managers have given the contract to blue eyed contractors in five sectors of G serial, I-10, I-and I-11 and over Rs340 million is given to them every year. “There should be at least 120 sweepers for every sector but contractors in each sector have kept 50 sweepers,” a source in the CDA said.
Documents available with Online reveal that Rs4.2 million has been paid for Sector G-6, over Rs3.7 million for G-8, Rs4 million for I-10 and G-10 each and over Rs3.2 million for I-11.
The sources told Online that the CDA officials neither allow recruiting new sweepers nor they ask contractors to hire more sweepers.
The CDA officials want their cleanliness budget to be raised to Rs1 billion so that cleanliness could be carried out properly and more sweepers could be hired.
The sources said that a PC-1 for buying machinery was approved during the tenure of Kamran Lashari but CDA officials and contractors created hurdles and the schemes remains unimplemented.
On the other hand, sweepers said that due to shortage of staff they have to face many difficulties and contractors pressure them to do more without facilitating them.
CDA Labour Union General Secretary Chaudhry Yaseen claimed that CDA officials give contract to favourites and they were never answerable. He said they needed to recruit at least 900 sweepers immediately to fill the shortage.
“The mafia within CDA does not want this as they back the current contract culture,” he said. When contacted, CDA Spokesperson Ramzan Sajid said that Islamabad was relatively the cleanest city as compared to other cities and garbage was lifted on a daily basis. He said that they were short of funds to hire more sweepers and added that the new Municipal Corporation will decide whether or not they hire more staff for cleanliness drive.
