GUJRAT: The Gujrat Municipal Corporation may hand over its entire sanitary staff as well as the equipment and the machinery of the sanitation branch to the recently established Gujrat Waste Management Company (GtWMC).

However, the proposal will be implemented following an agreement between both the civic agencies as a draft of the agreement is in the final phase to be signed by the administrator of municipality and the chairman of waste management company, said a senior administrative official while talking to Dawn.

The Punjab government has handed over the additional charge of the chief executive officer (CEO) of the company to recently posted Additional Deputy Commissioner General ADCG Muhammad Jameel who assumed both the charges.

A meeting of the board of directors of GtWMC) was held with Deputy Commissioner Amer Shahzad Kang in the chair.

The meeting was told that a draft was being prepared to hire the staff and to procure machinery for the company. At the initial stages, the sanitary staff and machinery would be taken from the municipality after which the lifting and dumping of solid waste and cleanliness of drains and storm water channels would become a responsibility of the waste management company.

It is learnt that following the agreement, services of at least 378 sanitary workers of the corporation would be put under the management of the company.

The company has also approved recruitment of around 300 workers, including the officer staff, sanitary workers, drivers and field managers and the posts are about to be advertised in the current week to accelerate the process of making the company formally functional.

The provincial government has already released a sum of Rs500m as a first installment from the one-time expenditure of Rs1.5bn on the establishment of the waste management company.

An official source said a huge chunk of the state land near Mehsam area along Bhimbher Road might be notified as a landfill or dumping site of the solid waste whereas a piece of two acres land near Kalara disposal station would be used for establishment of the company offices, workshop and parking area of the vehicles. He added that the GtWMC would lift the solid waste from 20 union councils of the city and in the next phase the cleanliness of drains would also be handed over to it.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2023