After months of uncertainty over Gurugram’s door-to-door garbage collection system, the Haryana government’s high-powered purchase committee, chaired by Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, on Friday finalised two agencies to undertake waste collection in the city.(Representative image) The project was retendered at ₹647.78 crore after the government panel rejected quoted rates for the earlier ₹606 crore tender in June. (HT Archive)Officials said BVG India Limited has been selected for Cluster I and Delhi MSW Solution for Cluster II. The project has an estimated cost of ₹647.78 crore, with ₹327.51 crore earmarked for Cluster I and ₹320.27 crore for Cluster II. The agency-wise breakup of vehicles, including the number of compactors and those to be deployed for primary collection, is yet to be finalised.Gurugram mayor Raj Rani Malhotra told HT that the two agencies will have to deploy 857 vehicles across both clusters. “As per the tender clause, the agencies will be required to deploy 50% of the mandated vehicles in the first month and achieve full deployment by the second month,” she said.“For the past few years, Gurugram has relied on short-term tenders and stopgap arrangements, under which agencies were often reluctant to deploy the mandated number of vehicles. Against the 591 vehicles required under the tender, only around 300 to 350 were operating on the streets, which also contributed to the problems. With the new long-term tenders in place, we are hopeful of a positive outcome,” she said.Dr Preetpal Yadav, Joint Commissioner (Swacch Bharat Mission), Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG), said, “Two agencies have been approved for door-to-door garbage collection in Gurugram in the high-level committee on Friday. Once the formal documentation is completed, both agencies will have to commence their services within two months.” No timeline has been specified yet for completing the formal documentation, issuing work orders or commencing mobilisation.Officials told HT that once the two new agencies take over, the existing short-term gap-arrangement agencies will be settled based on the services they have provided.The project will run for five years, with a provision for a two-year extension subject to compliance with the tender’s terms and conditions. MCG officials, however, said 857 vehicles will be deployed across both clusters.The agencies will also transport garbage from secondary collection points to the Bandhwari landfill and install compaction machines to compress waste before transportation, MCG officials said. Fresh waste will continue to be transported to and dumped at Bandhwari until new land is identified and fresh waste processing plants are installed.The tender covers 401,488 establishments under Cluster-I and around 327,911 units under Cluster-II, including houses, apartments, shops, offices, street vendors and bulk waste generators.Long-term contract ends stopgap solutionThe decision follows a prolonged period of stopgap arrangements after MCG terminated the former firm’s contract in June 2024. MCG subsequently relied on short-term contracts, with tenders issued for six-month periods from 2024, as long-term tenders underwent repeated revisions and delays.Between April 2025 and July 2026, MCG spent nearly ₹35 crore on sanitation, including ₹22.5 crore on door-to-door collection and ₹12.5 crore on sweeping and other services, even as garbage continued to pile up.In July 2026, MCG inspections found the five door-to-door garbage collection agencies had deployed significantly fewer than the mandated 591 vehicles. By early August, only 405 vehicles were deployed, up from 369 found during July inspections. One agency had been blacklisted and another served a show-cause notice.The August 4 HT report also quoted MCG officials saying agencies had to register their waste collection, sweeping vehicles and manpower on the Solid Waste Management (SWM) Monitoring Portal, with payments to be released only for registered vehicles and manpower based on work recorded on the portal.The project had faced another setback earlier. HT reported on June 10 that the government panel had declined to approve rates quoted by participating agencies and directed MCG to retender the ₹606 crore project. MCG subsequently refloated the tender at ₹647.78 crore.Officials had previously said the short-term nature of contracts made it difficult to establish a reliable collection system, as agencies hired for limited periods were reluctant to invest in vehicles. They had also said Gurugram had around 200 garbage-vulnerable points, of which only 30-40 had been closed.