Locals complain about overflowing garbage near bins, MCD blames irresponsible residents
Overflowing garbage bins have become one of the most prominent issues in Dehradun city. Several garbage bins can be seen in various roadside sites of the city surrounded with both biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste. One of the similar cases can be observed near the Lakshman Chowk area in Gandhigram ward (number 45) where an overflowing garbage bin surrounded by trash every day is causing a nuisance to locals in the Park Road area. According to one of the locals, Madhukar Dhiman, the people including some sanitation workers throw all kinds of garbage in and outside the bin that include biomedical waste too. “This issue of overflowing garbage bin is not a recent issue. We are facing this problem here for the last many years. We have complained to several authorities concerned like Dehradun mayor and municipal commissioner but nothing has been done in this matter,” said Dhiman.
Moreover, the councillor of the ward, Meenakshi Maurya also stated that she has complained to the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) and a team of the corporation also inspected the place but nothing changed. “The main issue is that most of the locals do not dump their garbage in the door to door collection service. The municipal workers take the garbage from the dustbin regularly but the garbage container site returns to the same condition again. I even started door to door collection service for locals three times a day in the area so that they refrain from throwing garbage there but still, they continue to do it,” said Maurya. She added that the garbage bin was even covered with a tarpaulin cover but it made the situation worse. “The garbage was being thrown in the drains and the open areas and we could not allow this so we had to uncover the bin. The locals will have to act responsibly which seems to be the only solution to this issue,” said Maurya. Responding to this, the senior municipal health officer Dr R K Singh said that the main problem is that the locals do not hand over domestic garbage to the door to door collection service in that area. “Some locals wanted us to remove the garbage bin from that area which is not possible. Where would we move it to? The issue is that the locals dump the garbage in the overflowing bins and outside it,” said Singh. He also said that the corporation covered the bin a few days back so that people refrain from dumping garbage there to which Maurya and Dhiman have claimed that it was done by them and not by the MCD.
Meanwhile, Singh said that to tackle such issues across the city, the corporation will soon issue notices to such people who are not dumping domestic garbage in the door to door collection service. The locals will have to show the receipts of the bill they receive for the door to door collection service proving that they handover their garbage to the sanitation workers, stated Singh. He said that if they fail, MCD will issue notices to such locals as a first warning and will even impose a penalty later on of minimum Rs 500 under anti-littering Act if they continue to violate rules.
Tuesday, 24 November 2020 | PNS | Dehradun
