Canals become dumping ground for garbage, sewage

Tribune News Service

Jammu, November 24

It seems there are no takers for the Swachh Bharat campaign, launched across the country by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The civic authorities and inhabitants of the city continue to ignore the transformation of city into a huge garbage dump.

Be it the Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC), entrusted with keeping the city clean, or the Irrigation and Flood Control Department, which takes care of the canals, no efforts have been made to make the cleanness drive a mass movement.

The Ranbir Canal and its offshoots, which pass through many localities of the city, have become a dumping ground for garbage and almost clogged by polythene and other solid waste dumped by the people.

Though strict instructions have been passed that it will be cleaned regularly and action would be taken against people caught dumping their garbage in it, nothing have been done to keep the canal clean, which irrigates thousands of kanals of agricultural land in Jammu.

Carrying along sewage, it usually flows in summers from Akhnoor to the tail end of Bhagwati Nagar, Talab Tillo, Gajansoo, Trikuta Nagar, Satwari and other interior areas.

“It is not only the department which is responsible for the plight of the water body, but people living around it are also equally responsible for its present state. Its quite unfortunate that we could not take care of our water bodies and for the same reason we have not been left with enough water,” said environmentalist Nadeem Qadri.

The inaction of the Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) in lifting garbage from various parts of the city is becoming a major health hazard for the residents. Further, the absence of containers in several localities is adding to the woes of residents.

At the moment, the Municipal Corporation collects garbage from 453 collections points within its limits by means of men and machinery and disposes it of into deep trenches on the city outskirts.