Puja leaves behind garbage, city stinks
CUTTACK: With the five-day Durga Puja celebrations over, environmentalists have raised concerns over the heaps of unattended garbage and waste littered on the streets of Silver City.
All kinds of insoluble waste like empty food packets, single use thermocol plates, cups, plastic bottles, polythene carry bags etc generated from temporary stalls which were set up near puja pandals and along roads during immersion ceremony lay scattered across the city.
Non-biodegradable waste was also scattered near Devigada Ghat, where idols were immersed. Official sources said the city generated around 100 tonne of additional garbage during the immersion ceremony besides 50 tonne of waste from temporary ponds at Devigada where more than 165 idols were immersed.
“The sanitary workers are collecting garbage from our locality, they have dumped those at a few designated points in the locality which in turn have not been cleared,” said Bhaskar Pradhan, a resident of Pilgrim Road. Most of the bins are running out of space to accommodate the extra waste generated in each locality, he added.
Sources said sanitary workers are struggling to clear the garbage generated in the 59 Wards as the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) has decided to first clear the immersion waste from the three temporary ponds on a priority basis. This has led to the inordinate delay in clearance of the garbage from several localities even though the civic body has been successful in clearing waste from traditional immersion route -- College Square to Choudhury Bazaar.
“As many as 472 sanitary workers have been engaged in clearing the garbage and waste generated during the immersion ceremony since Wednesday night and efforts are on working overtime and to clean the entire city and improve the overall sanitation situation by Friday,” said City Health Officer Umesh Panigrahi.