The Himachal Pradesh state Communist Party of India Marxist (CPIM) has strongly opposed the outsourcing of cleanliness arrangement of Shimla city by the Shimla Municipal Corporation (SMC).

Former Shimla Mayor and CPIM state member secretariat Sanjay Chauhan on Friday charged that the incumbent SMC lead by BJP has started upon implementing policy of privatisation and outsourcing.

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He stated that the civic body has moved for approval to call tenders for door to door garbage collection.

Chauhan said that when the Shimla Environment Heritage Conservation and Beautification (SEHEB) society was constituted in 2010 for the door-to-door collection of garbage the then Congress and BJP councillor’s who were in the majority privatised initiative. The private company hired to run the Society failed to smoothly implement the same.

The previous civic body recruited the staff under the SEHEB society and it was being successfully run, he said, adding that in 2012, 35 tonne of garbage was being collected which presently was collecting 70 to 80 tonnes of garbage per day covering 90 per cent houses.

The former civic body had after passing the resolution in the house requested the state government to accommodate the outsourced employees of the SEHEB Society into the civic body which was however turned down even as many posts are laying vacant.

Now in the year 2017 since the new BJP popular civic body elected have decided to privatise the same to facilitate the favourite contractors, he alleged.

In the recently held civic body meeting, the house approved the outsourcing of the cleanliness of Shimla city to call tenders for the door to door garbage collection.

The incumbent civic body instead of strengthening the corporation by making SEHEB society workers an employee of the corporation, is bent on outsourcing of the society which was anti-people, he rued.

CPIM has demanded that the decision to hand over the responsibility for the city’s cleanliness hold be reverted.

“The civic body should intervene to stop the ongoing strike of the SEHEB workers and accept their demands,” he said.

If the Municipal Corporation does not withdraw the decision the left party has threatened to hold protest.