Mayor pulls up MC Commissioner over door-to-door waste collection

Delhi Mayor, Dr Shelly Oberoi, in a letter to Commissioner of Delhi Municipal Corporation, directed him to explain the reasons behind failure in ensuring daily door-to-door waste collection across the city on Tuesday.

The Mayor has demanded immediate answers, warning that the mounting garbage is creating dangerous health hazards and could trigger the spread of diseases like dengue.

Citing the complaints that she received, Oberoi said, “I have been receiving several complaints from councillors across all MCD wards that waste collection agencies are failing to carry out daily door-to-door collection from their wards. This is leading to large piles of garbage being collected across localities of Delhi, which too are lying unattended for several days.”

“Not only is this creating unhygienic conditions across different wards of Delhi, it could also become a source for propagation of several diseases,” she added.

Citing her ground visits, the Mayor mentioned that to better understand the ground reality, she visited several wards of Delhi in the past few weeks - Lado Sarai, Madipur, Vikaspuri, Patel Nagar, Tilak Nagar, Janakpuri, Mahavir Enclave, Mohan Garden and Bindapur.

“I interacted with several residents who expressed their dissatisfaction with the task of waste collection and solid waste management by these agencies.” she further said.

The mayor said carrying out door-to-door collection of waste isn't just a mandatory contractual obligation of the waste collection agencies, it is also a statutory responsibility of the MCD under Section the Solid Waste Management Rules 2016.

Expressing her displeasure over the neglect by the officers, the Mayor stated, “It, therefore, constitutes a grave dereliction of duty by the waste collection agencies as well as MCD officials concerned who are tolerating such failure in performance by the waste collection agencies. Given the severity of this issue and the fact that this might be happening in many wards across Delhi, the Commissioner (MCD) is directed to share his responses to the following questions within two days, i.e. by 5 pm on Thursday, 26 September.”