The Punjab Government on Monday directed the Deputy Commissioners (DC) and Commissioners of Municipal Corporations to invoke powers under the Punjab laws to put in place alternate contingency plans to ensure that garbage collection and disposal services in civic bodies across the state remain uninterrupted.

The provisions under the municipal laws grant DCs oversight and “step-in” powers to ensure public safety and continuous civic operations when a municipal committee fails to act.

The instructions came hours after the Punjab and Haryana High Court, while hearing a civil writ petition, described the sanitation situation in Punjab’s municipal councils as ‘alarming’ amid the ongoing strike by sanitation workers.

Nearly 40,000 sanitation workers are on strike, demanding regularisation of contractual employees and the absorption of outsourced workers on a contractual basis. “If unorganised sanitation workers engaged in door-to-door garbage collection are included, the number could rise to nearly 56,000," said a senior government functionary.

Seeking a status report by Tuesday, Local Government Secretary Ghanshyam Thori directed all civic bodies to maintain seamless door-to-door garbage collection, transportation, and scientific disposal of municipal solid waste across the state. The police have been asked to ensure that there is no disruption in the provision of these essential services.

The authorities have also been asked to invoke Sections 233 and 234 of the Punjab Municipal Act, 1911, and ensure that municipal councils and nagar panchayats have alternate contingency measures in place. Similar action has been directed for the municipal corporations under the Punjab Municipal Corporation Act, 1976. By invoking provisions of the Municipal Act, the Deputy Commissioner of Sangrur got the town cleared of accumulated garbage. On similar lines, DCs in the remaining 22 districts have been directed to take the same measures.