VIJAYAWADA: In an effort to turn Vijayawada into a garbage-free city, the municipal corporation has decided to strictly implement a door-to-door collection of waste from households and commercial establishments.
The civic body is keen to stop indiscriminate dumping of waste on the roadside and in vacant plots. Out of the 59 divisions, the door-to-door collection of waste is being carried out in 37 divisions while the sanitation staff is collecting garbage in the remaining 22 divisions.
According to VMC officials, former municipal commissioner M Rama Rao had set the June 30 deadline to transform the city into a garbage-free city. However, as he was replaced with V Prasanna Venkatesh on June 24, it did not materialise. During his daily inspections across the city, a large number of residents complained to him that sanitary workers were not coming to their houses for garbage collection and with no option left solid waste is being dumped on the roadside and in vacant plots. Taking a serious note of the matter, the municipal commissioner held a series of meetings with the public health department officials and instructed them to come up with a comprehensive action plan to increase the number of divisions for strengthening the door-to-door collection of waste from households. At present, the city, with a population of close to 14 lakh is equipped with 2,900 CMYE and 677 public health workers to carry out sanitation operations in an extent of 61.88 square kilometres, the officials added.
When contacted, VMC chief medical officer for health K Arjuna Rao said that in November 2017, the civic body started distributing two separate coloured bins for residents to segregate dry and wet waste. Since then, the sanitary workers have been collecting the waste at the doorstep in 37 divisions of the city, owing to staff shortage and machinery, the procedure cannot be executed in other divisions. However, the corporation is now focusing on absentee employees and irregular staff. At present, the existing staff strength can cover the remaining 22 divisions and 10 garbage-cleaning machineries were procured, he said, adding that special focus is being laid to make the streets clean during the monsoon to avoid inconvenience to the residents.
