The Pune Municipal Corporation has issued notices to six road-sweeping contractors and recovered about Rs 6.25 lakh in penalties for lapses including accumulated waste, uncleared chronic garbage spots and the absence of workers from assigned areas. The civic administration said the action had improved sweeping work by 50 per cent, though the claim was attributed to the PMC’s solid waste management department and was not independently assessed in the report.
The penalties follow the launch of a three-month performance-based road-sweeping project being implemented on a pilot basis across Pune. Under the arrangement, different contractors have been assigned sweeping work within the limits of various ward offices. PMC officials are inspecting the quality of work at the sites rather than relying only on contractor reporting.
The civic body said notices were issued after inspections found deficiencies in the performance of contractors. The reported lapses included waste remaining at work locations, repeated failure to clean chronic garbage spots and workers not being present within the areas assigned to them.
The initial action involved Priyank Enterprises, Prime Avenue, Sumit Facilities Limited, Siddhivinayak Enterprises and Global Waste Management Cell Private Limited. The report also identified LVG Facilities India Private Limited and Lokrajya Self-Employment Service Cooperative Society in connection with specific penalties. The available report does not clarify whether all six notices relate to the companies listed in the same sequence or whether some entities were included in subsequent action.
LVG Facilities India was responsible for sweeping work involving 325 workers under the Bibwewadi ward office and 275 workers under the Wanawadi-Ramtekdi ward office. Since the work had not reached the expected standard even after two months, the PMC recovered a penalty of Rs 1,000 per worker. This resulted in a fine of Rs 3.25 lakh for the 325-worker assignment and Rs 2.75 lakh for the 275-worker assignment, taking the total penalty against the contractor to Rs 6 lakh.
A further penalty of Rs 20,000 was imposed on Lokrajya Self-Employment Service Cooperative Society after deficiencies were found in work involving 20 workers under the Kothrud-Bavdhan ward office. The report said the PMC had recovered about Rs 6.25 lakh from contractors so far, although it did not provide a complete contractor-wise breakup of the total amount.
The enforcement model marks a shift from the earlier practice described by the PMC, under which contractors were generally issued notices and one company had previously been fined Rs 5,000. The new system imposes a penalty of Rs 1,000 for each worker linked to deficient work, making the financial consequence larger when the failure affects a bigger assigned workforce.
Santosh Warule, deputy commissioner in the PMC’s solid waste management department, said the action had resulted in a 50 per cent improvement in sweeping work. Additional municipal commissioner Prajit Nair has also inspected some areas, according to the report. The PMC said surprise inspections would continue and that further action would be taken if shortcomings were found.
The three-month pilot will determine how the performance-based system operates across the assigned ward-office areas. The next enforcement step will depend on findings from surprise inspections and further site-level quality checks by the civic administration.
