The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s standing committee has approved a proposal estimated at ₹5 crore to outsource 180 peon positions through three agencies before completing a regular tender process, according to a report by Gujarat Samachar – Ahmedabad. The arrangement is intended to address staff shortages across multiple AMC departments, but the decision has raised questions about procurement compliance, accountability and the management of interim contracts.
Under the approved arrangement, each of the three agencies will provide 60 peons to the civic body. The proposal allows AMC to obtain the services before the tender process is completed, with a condition that a fresh tender be conducted within three months. The report said the agencies would also be exempted from submitting a formal contract document and depositing security money under the interim arrangement.
The outsourced staff will be deployed across different AMC departments. Nine workers from each agency, or 27 in total, are proposed to be assigned to the secretary’s office. The remaining 153 workers will be distributed among other civic departments, with 51 employees from each agency allocated for those functions. Work orders and salary payments will be handled by the respective departments, according to the proposal described in the report.
The reported cost is based on earlier resolutions concerning outsourced peon services. A health and solid waste management committee meeting on August 22, 2025, had approved proposals related to outsourcing such staff. Those earlier proposals referred to the cost of engaging 164 peons and separately to the expense of retaining 288 peons for two years.
The earlier cost calculations put the annual expense per peon at approximately ₹2.77 lakh, or about ₹23,150 a month. The report noted that the proposal does not clearly establish how much of this amount would be paid as wages to the workers and how much would remain with the agencies. Discussions cited in the report have placed workers’ monthly pay at approximately ₹12,000 to ₹15,000, but it said there was no official detail available to establish the precise wage and agency-cost breakdown.
The immediate arrangement also follows a recurring administrative problem in which outsourcing contracts are extended or continued while a new tender is pending. The report referred to earlier allegations that existing agencies continued providing services until fresh tenders were approved. It also raised questions about whether delays in completing tender procedures lead to repeated interim arrangements and how responsibility is fixed when procurement timelines are not met.
The proposal’s three-month tender condition is therefore central to the implementation. Until that process is completed, AMC will rely on the three selected agencies for 180 workers under the approved outsourcing arrangement. The report did not provide details of the agencies’ names, the precise duration of the interim contracts or the timeline for publishing the tender.
