MCG notice to Ecogreen over contract termination

The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) on Tuesday served the preliminary termination of contract notice to Ecogreen, the concessionaire engaged for waste management.

On September 22, the urban local bodies (ULB) department sent a letter to MCG observing that the concessionaire failed to carry out 100% doorstep waste collection, 100% waste segregation and 80% recycling of waste collected in Gurugram and Faridabad, officials aware of the matter said.

Naresh Kumar, joint commissioner of MCG, said that the civic body had filed a nine-point reply to the observations to ULB in September, in which it was mentioned that the concessionaire failed on every front and did not meet any target set in the agreement.

MCG officials said that Ecogreen was engaged six years ago, but is yet to achieve 100% door-to-door collection. “The concessionaire should have also achieved 100% waste segregation at source within six months of signing the agreement. The segregation level achieved so far, however, is just 40%,” Kumar said.

Kumar added that ULB department had sought information on whether Ecogreen ever failed to collect waste for seven consecutive days, since it would be considered an “event of default” as per the agreement. “We replied that there were several occasions when they did not collect waste for seven days in a row. We had sent a recommendation to terminate the contract to ULB department. It recently shared observations on solid waste management and sought certain details from us. On Monday, we were asked to serve preliminary notice to them,” he said.

However, the concessionaire said that MCG failed to provide land for waste to treatment plant (WTP), adequate transfer stations and material recovery facilities to them. “MCG failed to curb garbage from bulk waste generators (BWG) and neither helped to get access to BWGs, one of its challenges. MCG failed to encourage residents to pay user charges to Ecogreen, which hit its business,” said a senior official requesting anonymity.

Suvendu Samantaray, general manager, operations, Ecogreen Energy Gurugram, said that in many parts of the city, unauthorised waste collectors are currently operating in association with the Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs). “They introduce themselves as MCG-authorised agencies for treating waste. They do not allow us to collect waste and threaten our teams, following which they are forced to return empty-handed. We are already paying for the transportation and salaries, but our teams are not being allowed,” he said.

Samantaray said that as per the concession agreement, Ecogreen is entitled to collect the municipal solid waste — wet, dry and inert. “Also, to collect the user charges from the waste generators. Some RWAs have hired these unauthorised waste collectors and are harassing our teams. We are being targeted to stop work,” he said.

According to officials, an agreement was signed by ULB department, municipal corporations of Gurugram and Faridabad (MCF) and Ecogreen on June 30, 2017 for solid waste management and setting up of a waste-to-energy (WTE) plant at Bandhwari at a cost of ₹330 crore.

On April 13, 2018, Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar had laid the foundation stone of the WTE plant. Ecogreen got environmental clearance for the project from the Union ministry of environment, forests and climate change in 2019 for a 15 MW plant.