VIJAYAWADA:The city is stinking to high heavens with garbage piling up in every street corner even as the ongoing strike by sanitary department’s contract workers entered the fourth day on Saturday.
The sanitation saff are not allowing the transportation fleet to move the municipal solid waste to dumping yard since Wednesday. According to official sources, about 520-550 tonnes of garbage is being generated in the city every day. Of this, more than 300 tonnes is generated from households which come straight to the dumper bins placed at vantage points in the city.
The corporation has recruited 46 drivers and as many 46 cleaners on contract basis to move the garbage on 35 vehicles round-the-clock in the city to the dumping yard. These contract workers have started protesting against the corporation demanding the release of their colleagues who were caught red-handed for stealing fuel from sanitation vehicles and selling it illegally. The garbage accumulated at dumpers in many parts of the city including the corporation surroundings.
Despite all its contingency plans, the VMC could not clear all the garbage generated in the city and out of the 2,000 tonnes of garbage generated in the past four days, the corporation was able to clear just 900 tonnes with the help of 30 government drivers in the private vehicles.
“The corporation has made alternative arrangements to ensure that the people would not face hardships.
There are about 25-30 permanent sanitary workers in the city. They were deployed equally in all the three circles. We have deployed 35 tractors and three tippers to clear garbage in the streets and making all efforts to clear the garbage completely by Monday. The corporation has also decided to use private lorries and private drivers to completely clear the heaps of garbage that piled up in the past three days, to avoid inconvenience to citizens,” said chief medical officer M Gopi Naik.
The corporation has issued notices to the Drivers and Cleaners’ Association for undertaking the unexpected strike without serving notices.
As the contract workers in the sanitation department of VMC are continuing to strike work in support of tainted colleagues, the corporation officials have decided to recruit the staff in place of the agitating workers.
“We are making all efforts to recruit 55 drivers and 45 cleaners by inviting tenders in a couple of days as the contract period of these staff will expire by the end of this month,” Gopi Naik said.