After 2-year delay, waste pickup project heads for rate talks in Gurgaon

Gurgaon: Two years on, the fate of the city’s door-to-door waste collection project — estimated at Rs 606 crore — is set to be decided on Tuesday. The high-powered purchase committee (HPPC) of Haryana govt will take up the tender for final deliberations and rate negotiations. The contracts are expected to run for five years, with provisions for extension based on performance.Under the proposed arrangement, the selected agencies will be responsible for collecting segregated waste from households, commercial establishments and institutions and transporting it to the landfill at Bandhwari.For nearly two years, MCG has relied on temporary arrangements while the urban local bodies (ULB) department repeatedly revised the tender framework for a permanent solution. The project has a long and troubled history. The city’s waste collection system has remained in flux since June 2024, when MCG terminated its contract with Ecogreen over poor performance.Sources said four bidders have qualified for the financial stage of the tender process. Of these, two agencies will eventually be selected, one for each cluster into which the city has been divided. The first cluster comprises zones 1 and 4, while the second cluster consists of zones 2 and 3. The civic body floated the tender in April after restructuring the city into two operational clusters in an attempt to improve accountability and service delivery.Sources said that a Delhi-based and another Maharashtra-based firm are at L1 (the lowest bid) and are likely to get the contract. The project is among the largest civic service contracts floated by MCG and comes after nearly two years of uncertainty over the city’s waste collection system. The rates quoted by all four bidders will be examined during Tuesday’s HPPC meeting, where negotiations are expected to be held before the final award is approved.A senior MCG official told TOI, “We have four agencies shortlisted after technical evaluation for two clusters and four zones of the city. Rates will be negotiated in HPPC meeting on Tuesday and a final decision on the rate approval will then be taken, paving the way to streamline the doorstep waste collection in the city.”The tender incorporates stringent performance conditions, including penalties for missed collections, failure to maintain waste segregation and poor collection efficiency. Contractors can face financial deductions if collection efficiency falls below prescribed benchmarks, while repeated violations can lead to termination of contracts.As earlier reported by TOI, the civic body initially proposed awarding separate contracts for each of the four zones of the city and had sought govt approval for a four-agency model. However, after multiple revisions to the request for proposal (RFP) and consultations with the urban local bodies department, the model was reworked before the latest tender was floated.After 2024, MCG relied on temporary arrangements and short-term agencies, but residents continued to report irregular garbage collection and sanitation issues across several parts of the city. Multiple revisions of the tender document followed as authorities struggled to finalise a long-term model. TOI earlier reported that the ULB department revised the RFP several times in waste collection contracts.