Pune Municipal Corporation has begun an inquiry into its Rs 42 crore road-sweeping contract after complaints that civic employees, rather than contractor staff, were carrying out cleaning work in several parts of the city. The allegations have raised questions about whether work recorded under private contractors is being performed by municipal workers and whether the corporation is paying for duplicated manpower.
The issue concerns the civic body’s performance-based road-sweeping pilot, under which private contractors were engaged to clean roads across Pune. The report said the corporation had around 4,500 sanitation workers, while contractors initially deployed a similar number. The administration later proposed doubling the contractor workforce to 9,000, citing inadequate manpower for the city’s cleaning requirements.
The proposal was approved by the standing committee for work estimated at Rs 42 crore. According to the report, the decision was based partly on the length of Pune’s roads. While the municipal roads department records the city’s road network at 2,394 km, the administration is alleged to have considered 9,000 km of roads while calculating the additional manpower requirement.
After the larger contractor workforce became available, municipal employees were reportedly instructed to stop road sweeping and instead undertake cleaning at civic offices and unskilled work connected with drainage operations. Orders directed most regional offices to use contractor staff for road sweeping, with Kasba and Vishrambaugwada cited as exceptions.
However, municipal employees have continued to be seen sweeping roads in several regional office areas, according to the report. Complaints have also alleged that contractor workers were not present at some locations. In some instances, civic employees were reportedly seen wearing jackets belonging to contractors while performing sweeping work.
These allegations have prompted questions over whether municipal employees are carrying out work that is being shown on paper as having been completed by contractors. The inquiry is expected to examine contractor performance, the actual attendance of workers and the utilisation of funds. The report did not state that the inquiry had reached a final finding.
The matter was also raised by corporators during a standing committee meeting. They alleged that a single contractor worker was being shown as working on roads in three different regional offices, raising concerns about a gap between the manpower recorded in documents and the number of workers actually present on the ground.
The dispute places the corporation’s outsourcing model under scrutiny at three levels: whether the road-length data used for staffing was accurate, whether contractor employees were deployed as required, and whether the performance-based contract can be verified through measurable work records. The municipal administration’s inquiry and its review of attendance, field deployment and expenditure will determine whether the complaints reflect implementation failures or wider irregularities in the contract.
The report said a report on the matter is expected by 30 October. Until that assessment is completed, the allegations remain under inquiry.
