The Surat civic body's contract to an agency for penalising those littering and encroaching roads has not been yielding the desired results.
The Surat civic body's contract to an agency for penalising those littering and encroaching roads has not been yielding the desired results. As complaints pour in about the agency, the SMC now plans not to extend the contract once the current one expires.
To put a stop to people's habit of littering and encroaching city roads, the SMC had entered into a contract with a Mumbai-based private agency, Central Investigative and Security Services (CISS) a few months back. Under the pilot project, the agency was assigned the work in central zone as the highest number of complaints came from here.
However, SMC's plan has not worked well as CISS employees are penalising people randomly and haphazardly. They are also ignoring the rules mentioned in the contract.
The civic authorities now regret assigning the work to CISS. The numerous complaints and anguish within the civic staff have forced the authorities to rethink on extending the contract.
"Looking at the results of the pilot project and CISS's style of work, we feel that hiring a private agency was not the right decision. We might not extend the contract with CISS, once the contract is over," said Hemant Desai, deputy municipal commissioner (health and hospitals). Desai said that there instances where agency staff had misbehaved with people.
Another problem is that the central zone has been declared having '0' encroachment on many routes. CISS staff straightway detains larriwalas and roadside vendors on these routes, thus worsening the situation.
People are enraged with this as it has a direct effect on their source of livelihood. At the end of the day, it is the SMC officials who have to face these people.
Currently, CISS is keeping an eye on the civic roads within the central zone.
Roads within a radius of 8 km are under strict vigil of CISS officials. They continuously take rounds and penalise anyone found encroaching or littering the roads. Fines range from Rs50 to Rs1,000. The penalty amount is shared between SMC and CISS on 40:60 basis.
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