CUTTACK: City residents are a worried lot as the abrupt discontinuation of door-to-door garbage collection by the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) has left them with no other option than to dump their household waste either on the roadside or in drains.
While dumping garbage on the roads poses both environmental and health risks, their disposal into drains leads to clogging which again worsens the waterlogging situation during rains.
Residents of ward no 52 in Subhadra Nagar said earlier, the waste collection vehicles came to their localities twice or thrice a week. “But the civic body has suddenly stopped door-to-door garbage collection in our locality for the last two months as a result of which we are having to dump them on the roadside,’ she said.
Echoing similar concerns, residents of ward no 2 in Bidanasi area said they had taken the matter to the CMC but the latter is yet to sort the issue. Local corporator Pushpita Mohanty said questions in this regard were raised in the council meetings several times but the concerned authorities have done nothing to streamline the waste collection system.
Similar complaints have also been coming to the fore from various other localities in the city. A corporator, requesting not to be named, alleged there is no permanent officer to head the sanitation wing of the CMC. “Three officers (deputy commissioners) who were in charge of the sanitation wing of the CMC so far, have been changed in the last three months. Now the city engineer is in charge of the sanitation wing as a result of which the waste management system is in complete disarray,” he added.
CMC commissioner Anam Charan Patra could not be reached for a comment on the matter.
Sources said, the CMC had engaged both light commercial vehicles (LCVs) and battery-operated vehicles (BOVs) for collection and disposal of garbage in the city. While the agreement with the agency that had been providing the BOVs has reportedly lapsed a year back, sources said the civic body has currently engaged around 150 LCVs for waste collection and planning to engage 70 diesel-operated vehicles soon.