Mangaluru : The councillors of Mangalore City Corporation on Monday criticised the handling of solid waste management in the city. They urged the mayor to take legal opinion on terminating the seven-year contract of the Mumbai-based company handling the waste.

The councillors were upset that the contractor company, Antony Waste Handling Cell Pvt. Ltd., has focussed its activities only on collecting waste from doorsteps. It has ignored street sweeping, grass cutting, divider cleaning, beach cleaning and cleaning drains.

The former Mayor, Mahabala Marla, said as per the terms of contract the company would have to deploy 290 persons with uniform for street sweeping. But it has not done it, he alleged.

An environment engineer at the corporation told the council that the door- to- door collection of solid waste was not happening fully in the city. The company was not doing it effectively particularly in commercial areas.

They said the company was being paid on the basis of weight of garbage collected. Taking this advantage its workers were sometimes transporting soil and stones to the compost plant at Pachchanady, they alleged.

Replying to it the Commissioner H.N. Gopalakrishna said closed circuit television cameras would be installed at the compost plant to monitor the dumping of waste at the plant.

Premananda Shetty, BJP councillor, said as per the terms of contract, the company cannot stop the work for any reasons. If it had any issues it should be settled with the corporation. But the company stopped the works suddenly on January 5 over issues relating to non-payment of dues to it. It resorted to blackmailing the corporation demanding payment to it. It cannot do so. The corporation should have taken legal action as per provision. But it did not do so. Sudhir Shetty Kannur, Leader of the Opposition in the Council, said what prevented the corporation from paying the company the amount due to it. However, he did not fix any deadline for it.

The Commissioner said the company had been served 26 notices in the last 10 months on its several lapses. The commissioner and the Mayor Jesinta Vijaya Alfred said the company has been given February 15 deadline to set right all issues.