Removal of the roadside dumping points is the top priority of the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD). The corporation had already successfully removed some of such dumping points in the Tagore Villa and Raja Road areas of downtown Dehradun and sooner or later, the whole city will be free of roadside dumping soon.
This was stated by Dehradun mayor Sunil Uniyal ‘Gama’ while responding to the recent social audit conducted by the team of Dehradun based Social Development for Communities (SDC) Foundation, an NGO based in Dehradun. According to the audit report, the team identified 12 dumping sites on the five major routes of the city after conducting a week-long urban social audit. As per the audit, these dumping sites can be observed on the routes which lie enroute Ballupur to Clock Tower, Clock Tower to Rajpur Road, Ballupur to Transport Nagar, ISBT to Rispana Pull and Premnagar to Ballupur.
The audit report also revealed that the food waste besides plastic waste contributes most to the roadside dumps of Dehradun city. These dumping sites stink and the unsegregated garbage lying there becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes and flies and as per the report, the sanitation workers that engage in the cleaning of such sites use no protective equipment even during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Besides, the food waste is the type of waste which was found to be dumped the most on these roadside dumping sites followed by multilayer plastic waste, cloth waste, glass waste and light plastics including packaging plastic and polythene. Moreover, the audit also revealed that the nearby shopkeepers and citizens also dump their garbage in such roadside dumps. However, the team also made some suggestions to tackle this issue on the basis of the best methods implemented in some of the cleanest city of the country like Indore, Ambikapur and Pune. Some of the suggestions included in the audit report were that the source segregation and door to door service can be improved in the city besides facilitating individual and community level composting. The report also recommended conducting regular waste audits of bulk waste generators besides setting up dry waste collection centers. In Dehradun, roadside dumping sites are one of the major sanitation issues in the city with which the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) is struggling to tackle for a long time. According to the founder of the SDC Foundation Anoop Nautiyal, if these roadside dumps will be eliminated, it will make the city more hygienic as well as would increase the chances of Dehradun of getting a higher position in Swachh Survekshan 2021. The mayor also stated on this issue that the corporation is working to implement and improve door to door garbage collection service in all the wards and he is confident that it will help to make the city free of dumping points soon.
Wednesday, 18 December 2020 | PNS |Dehradun
