VELLORE : Vellore Corporation Commissioner P Janaki Raveendran has sought public support to improve solid waste management in the city.
Despite several efforts from the civic body to create awareness among public regarding garbage segregation and waste disposal, she said that people continue to casually dump the waste on the roads or inside canals.
“Sanitation staff (animators) have been going door to door to raise awareness on garbage segregation. Since the past four years, we have also been visiting schools and spreading awareness among children. If the people cannot segregate waste, they can at least hand it over to corporation sanitation workers,” the commissioner said.
At present, corporation workers come to collect waste every morning, except Sundays. The civic body has allocated one staff for every 250 households. However, on their off days, people just throw garbage bags at street corners or at the canals. The issue is more pronounced as the city is bin-free.
The commissioner, however, accepted that there are some areas that need improvement from the corporation’s side as well. “Presently, we have a staff crunch. So if one worker is absent, garbage collection is not possible. If people segregate waste properly, we can recruit workers on a shift basis.”
Another challenge pointed out by the commissioner was the waste generated from encroachments along the hills. She said that a number of people build kutcha (temporary) houses on the hills. “As these houses are built on encroached land, we cannot allocate a worker in those areas,” she said.
Vellore corporation is also actively looking for an open space for a dumpyard. “After Saduperi dumpyard was closed (in 2018, after an order from Southern Zone of National Green Tribunal), we tried to use vacant land in Sathupalayalam. But the villagers there created a communal issue. Wherever we try, people protest saying they do not want a dumpyard in their neighbourhood. People are not even allowing us to build a Resource Recovery Centre (RRC), from where garbage is segregated and recycled,”
she added.