SURAT, March 10: To complement its cleanliness drives that have earned encomiums for the Surat Municipal Corporation, the civic body has now decided to make its monetary package more attractive to woo private societies for clearing the garbage in their own backyards.When the civic body found that its staff of 15,000 would be unable to meet the requirements of a burgeoning population -- the paucity of sanitary workers was another factor -- it offered Rs 600 each to members of private societies if they were ready to take up the responsibility.
However, there were few takers for the scheme. In fact, only a handful of societies regularly accepted the money from the civic body.
The civic body has now decided to increase the amount to Rs 1200 for cleaning an area spread over 3000 sq ft. According to deputy commissioner J G Hingrajia, the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) is the first civic body to offer money to private societies for cleaning the area under its jurisdiction.
The new proposal has been putbefore the standing committee which will take it up for discussion soon.
The civic staff was asked to conduct an informal survey to find out why the scheme had fallen flat. Most of the staff returned with the same complaint -- that society members were unimpressed by the monthly sum of Rs 600, forcing municipal commissioner S Jagadeesan to revise the scheme and increase the amount.
To give a boost to the scheme and to advertise the new proposal, the commissioner on Sunday convened a meeting of members of such private societies from the posh Athwa Lines locality. Chairmen and secretaries of as many as 110 such societies attended the meeting and reacted favourably to the proposal. There are more than 150 societies in Athwa Lines alone.
Similar meetings will be convened for societies of the remaining five zones from next month. On an average there are 150 registered societies in each of these zones. The civic body has already accepted the responsibility of cleaning of societies whose roads became part ofTown Planning Schemes and were declared public roads.
The civic officials also sought involvement of society members in programmes like tree plantation.
Some members opined that a sum of Rs 1500 would be more appropriate to attract more societies to the scheme but the corporation settled for Rs 1200. The society members also formed a federation and resolved to take up their grievances simultaneously with the civic body.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
