Friday, 14 July 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
Slums residents in Dehradun will have to wait for at least a month for the commencement of door to door garbage collection service due to heavy rain. The Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) recently started the survey of slums to provide sanitation facilities there as per the recent directions of the high court but it has now postponed it due to heavy rain. The sanitation teams of the corporation started the survey to gather information about what kind of vehicle or cart should be sent to slums to collect the garbage via door to door services.
There are 25 to 30 slum pockets across the city where people live in more than 40,000 houses, said the chief municipal health officer Dr Avinash Khanna. He said that several lanes in these slums are so narrow that even a bicycle can hardly pass through them. He said that the MCD started the survey to identify all such locations to ensure door to door garbage collection service can be provided there via small carts, rickshaws, or a small and big vehicle as per the requirement. “The teams have marked only about 20 per cent of total slums in the city under the survey. We have to halt the survey due to heavy rains. It will possibly be resumed next month,” said Khanna.
Slums are usually believed to be the most neglected section of any city that often does not receive enough sanitation facilities. Slums are considered to be one of the biggest challenges for the civic bodies due to various factors including the infrastructural issues of slums and the attitudinal rigidness of people there regarding waste management. It is observed that people in slums often resort to discarding all their waste in nearby public places due to irregular or no garbage collecting facilities there. Garbage gets accumulated there with time and eventually becomes a mountain of garbage.
The heap of uncollected garbage can also take a toll on local’s health. As per Solid Waste Management Rules 2016, every civic body is expected to carry out door-to-door collection service and transportation of municipal solid waste from all areas of the city. The MCD claims to provide door to door services in all wards but most of the slums are deprived of this facility.
Khanna said that the high court has issued an order to maintain facilities in the slum areas and the corporation will ensure to execute it properly in all wards. He said that the MCD will not take any monthly user charges from slums as most of the slum dwellers fall below poverty line (BPL). He said that the corporation wants to encourage every household in slums to practice efficient waste management and all measures will be taken to ensure door to door services are introduced in every slum.
