Garbage piles up on MKCG campus as BeMC demands Rs 10L user fee

Berhampur: Garbage has piled up on the MKCG Medical College and Hospital campus here as Berhampur Municipal Corporation (BeMC) has stopped lifting waste for the past five days. The civic body has demanded over Rs 10.48 lakh from MKCG as user charges for lifting waste from the campus for the last two years.In a letter to the MKCG superintendent, BeMC commissioner B P Mishra said the validity of the tripartite agreement between the superintendent, an agency engaged by the hospital authorities and BeMC on cleaning the medical college campus expired on March 31, 2022.BeMC, however, continued to clean the campus, despite no fresh agreement or its renewal. The civic body calculated over Rs 10.48 lakh for lifting of garbage during the period at Rs 1,500 per trip. BeMC claimed they lifted garbage in 282 and 417 trips in 2023 and 2024, respectively.Moreover, a transfer station, operated on the campus, was closed at the request of the MKCG authorities, leading to extreme pressure on sanitation work of BeMC. "Additional cost has to be borne by the BeMC for the transfer of the waste over a longer distance," Mishra wrote.BeMC, in its meeting on Nov 22, decided not to engage in cleaning or transfer of solid waste from the medical college, he further wrote, and asked for pending user fees to be paid at the earliest."As per the decision in the corporation meeting, we have stopped cleaning the medical college campus," said Ashribad Parida, deputy commissioner (sanitation), BeMC.Sangram Panda, administrator of the medical college, said they didn't have data on how many trips were made by BeMC to lift garbage from the campus during the period. He said there was no mention in the agreement to pay Rs 1,500 per garbage trip."We found that no medical college in the state paid user charges to their respective civic bodies," said Panda. "The matter will be taken up with the revenue divisional commissioner (south)," he added.