Seven thousand workers are employed by DCC, to clean about 4000 tons of solid waste everyday. But allegations have been made that most of the workers remain absent in the field though they are paid wages on a regular basis. Due to this unsolved problem, DCC has handed over to four private organizations the waste management services for the eight wards at Uttara, Gulshan, Baridhara, Banani and Tejgaon for one year.

DCC has divided the eight wards among Poribesh Unnayan Forum for Uttara, LN Corporation for Tajgaon, Bangladesh Integrated Environment Development Forum for Gulshan and Baridhara, and Rhythm for Nikunjo2 in Banani.

According to a week-long survey of Poribesh Unnayan Forum, prior to their participation in the tender, 20 to 25 workers were found on the street everyday whereas 100 workers were employed for street-sweeping in Ward 1 of Uttara.

DCC will certainly gain in terms of cost benefit from this venture.

"The cost of cleaning for eight wards was Taka 6.5 crore by engaging DCC workers but utilizing the service of private organizations the cost would come down to Taka 3.75 crore per year", said the Chief Town-Planner of DCC, Tapan Kumar Das Gupta.

"We have got the job of Ward 1 of Uttara for Taka 72 Lakhs, which is Taka 20 lakhs less than DCC cost," said Nurul Huda Zaidee of Poribesh Unnayan Forum.

The open DCC containers on the street-side secondary dumping places have become a major source of environmental pollution. The private organizations responsible for the cleanliness of the city have decided to get rid of the dumping containers of DCC from their wards due to the corruption of the transport workers. The DCC trucks did not pick up the containers everyday, alleged the private organizations.

There are also allegations that DCC transport workers benefit from the money billed for extra petrol. The transport workers used to take one trip to the only dumping place at Matuail and billed the DCC transport department for three or four trips.

DCC workers are also allegedly creating problems for the private organizations as they dump waste in the wards handed over to the private organizations. There is a problem with the coordination among the engineering, transport and conservancy departments of DCC.

"The corruption of the truck-drivers is the problem of transport department but we are trying to solve this problem", said the Chief Conservancy Officer, Sohel Farouqui.

To solve the cleanliness problem, the conservancy department has taken several other steps like providing ID cards and green aprons to the workers, ensuring cleanliness of the VIP roads, around the containers, and dumping waste from the street side containers to Mautail before day break.

DCC will replace the current 400 containers with mobile wheeled containers and 'litter bins' at commercial places for public use, said the chief of conservancy.