In its fight against jaundice in Ahmedabad

Despite the raids on food stalls and implementation of pre-monsoon action plan, the jaundice menace continues to haunt the city.

Senior corporator of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), Mangal Surajkar, claims that shortage of cleaning staff in the city is the reason behind the spread of the disease.

During the zero hour discussion in the standing committee meet on Friday, Surajkar registered his protest against the civic body's indifference towards the recruitment of Grade 4 employees, who are given the task of cleaning of garbage and sewerage in the city.

He asked the officials to give the reasons behind the lack of cleaning staff.

"We have over the years included new wards in the city, but have failed to recruit required cleaning staff, which leads to improper hygienic conditions across the city," said Surajkar.

Surendra Baxi, another senior corporator, asked the officials to hire cleaning staff on a temporary basis.

"The shortage of cleaning staff cannot be ignored. AMC must act fast to stop the disease from spreading," he said.

During the meeting, the standing committee chairman proposed to impose a penalty on consultant Artec Technocret and civil contractor Maruti Construction, who had constructed the civic centre and library in Amraiwadi ward.

AMC found that both the consultant and contractor have not carried out the work properly and this has resulted in additional expenditure of Rs57 lakh. The AMC has proposed to penalise and blacklist them.

Not satisfied with the decision, Baxi asked the chairman to take action against 'ignorant' officials and engineers of AMC, who were equally responsible for not looking after the project. The chairman Bhupendra Patel assured them that the AMC would take stringent steps against the officials.