VIJAYAWADA: Municipal Commissioner M Rama Rao on Sunday directed the public health department officials to initiate necessary steps to transform Vijayawada as a garbage-free city by the end of this month. He also made it clear that household garbage segregated by the sanitation workers should be shifted to the processing units instead of dumping yards.
The civic body chief, accompanied by zonal commissioner Srinivas, inspected several localities under division number 36 and 40 and instructed the sanitary inspectors to inform the residents about segregating the wet and dry wastes before handing it over to the sanitation staff.
Later, he visited the compost shredding plant behind Kaleswara Rao Market and took stock of the progress of treating household and commercial wastes generated in division number 40. After inspecting the waste treatment procedure, the municipal commissioner directed the sanitation staff to shift the wet wastes to compost plants, dry wastes to scrap dealers and construction and demolition waste as well as plastic wastes to the plants in the premises of Ajith Singh Nagar dumping yard.
Observing the poor state of the public toilets near KR Market, Rao instructed the sanitary inspectors to ensure cleanliness round-the-clock and make them accessible to the public.The civic body chief also called upon the Haleem stall owners in Panja Centre to hand over the wastes to sanitation staff instead of dumping them indiscriminately on the roadside. He also ordered the public health department officials to carry out surprise checks on traders in One Town locality and penalise those found using plastic bags and seize the shops under Public Health Act.