Despite facing a financial crunch and a spirited resistance from a couple of councillors belonging to the opposition group, the Mapusa Municipal Council (MMC) on Monday went ahead with its decision to hire 40 daily wage workers for garbage collection and engage the services of 10 labourers for pound keeping by majority vote.
The council also decided to recruit a junior engineer, municipal inspector and a mason and further hike their wages.
MMC Chairperson Priya Mishal stressed the need to employ 40 daily wage workers to tackle garbage related activity in town as mounds of waste were found unattended at several black spots due to shortage of workers.
She was vociferously supported by councillors Prakash Bhivshet, Sainath Raul, Chandrashekar Benkar and Viraj Phadke who is the Vice Chairperson of the council.
The councillors in the opposition, Kamal D’Souza and Shashank Narverkar, disapproved the move to hire more labourers as it would put pressure on the already depressing treasury of the council.
“When we have already decided to outsource garbage collection then why are we on a hiring spree to engage more labourers? By hiring so many labourers, we will only be burdening the tax payers of Mapusa,” D’Souza said.
Councillor Shashank Narvekar also appealed to the council to do a rethink before going ahead in hiring more labourers which will only put stress on the civic body’s finances.
He also said that hiring more labourers does not guarantee that the work of garbage collection will improve and stressed the need to streamline management of existing workers.
Councillor Tarak Arolkar, who supports the ruling group, said the civic body actually had excess workers and there was no need to employ more daily wage employees.
“There is no problem if some workers who are not performing well are removed and replaced by new ones. Engaging new workers will put extra burden on the council,” Arolkar said.
Councillor Prakash Bhivshet opined that the council may not hire workers immediately but a provision can be made so that whenever there is shortage the civic body can hire workers and therefore the resolution should be passed.
The opposition group of councillors also opposed the move to hire 10 labourers for pound keeping as there were not many cattle on streets. They also said that Mapusa town was geographically small and did not require so many labourers.
The councillors also could not find unanimity on the decision to recruit and increase the wages of a Junior Engineer, Municipal Inspector and a mason.
Unable to find unanimity on the resolutions, the chairperson called for voting and passed all the resolutions.
(To receive our E-paper on WhatsApp daily, please click here. To receive it on Telegram, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)
