Officials hardly mind garbage at workplace

Nikhila Pant Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, April 25

The Municipal Corporation Bathinda claims to be working hard to keep the city clean and is eager to let the residents know about the work done in this regard but heaps of garbage at the District Administrative Complex tell a sorry tale.

When the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan of the Central government was launched in October 2014 in Bathinda, many senior government officials had participated in the campaign.

Ironically, the officials of the same government offices daily walk into their offices located in the District Administrative Complex (DAC) after passing by heaps of garbage lying near its walls, especially near the parking lot.

Explaining that the MCB couldn’t be blamed for the garbage piles at the DAC, chief sanitary inspector Sandeep Kataria said, “A private firm has the contract of keeping the DAC clean. The same firm has a contract with the JITF to lift garbage from the complex. The onus of keeping the DAC clean is not with the MCB.”

Although the safai workers, working on contractual basis with the Municipal Corporation, are quite regular with the door-to-door collection of garbage from residential areas, street sweepers may be blamed for not doing their bit regularly to keep the city clean.

It’s not just the garbage piles inside the DAC, even the dustbins installed there are often turned upside down or fallen on the ground and garbage strewn all around.

While the officials of the Municipal Corporation stating that the MCB was trying its best to ensure regular collection of garbage from residential areas, the collectors often dump the garbage in community bins and leave them there for a day or more.

“The same is the case at the District Administrative Complex where the sweepers, after cleaning the entire complex, collect the garbage at one point but the garbage is not lifted on some day, thereby leading to foul smell around,” an employee working at the DAC said.