Heaps of garbage dot Karnal stretches

Parveen Arora

Karnal, January 30

The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan seems to have gone down the drain in Karnal city as heaps of garbage dot various roads. Garbage has not been lifted properly from the dumping sites, emitting foul smell and attracting stray animals.

In the 2021 Swachh Survekshan ranking, Karnal has slipped to 86 place from 17 in 2020 in the 1-10 lakh population category.

As per the information, Karnal city generates around 170 tonnes of garbage per day, while the capacity of the solid waste management (SWM) plant on the Meerut Road is around 150 tonnes per day. During rains, the plant was lying non-functional for some days, resulting in overflowing of garbage. As per sources, already heaps of garbage are lying there, processing of which may take time.

Lack of employees

My ward has five villages and Basant Vihar Colony, but the number of employees is around 35. Due to the lack of staff, the garbage remains unlifted on many occasions. —Naveen Kumar, Deputy mayor and Councillor of ward 1

Claims of civic body

All dumping sites should be cleaned daily. The night sweeping has been started. Motivators and Saksham youths are spreading awareness on the segregation of waste at source. —Dheeraj Kumar, Deputy municipal commissioner

As per officials, still around 30 per cent garbage is not being segregated at the source.

The KMC has set up five permanent dumping points – one each at Kachwa road, old vegetable market, Ramlila Ground, Sector 6 and Sector 7, but most of these are not cleaned daily despite the directions to clean these, said Jagjeet Singh, a local resident.

The civic body has 1,056 sanitary workers against the demand of over 1,500, due to which the situation is more worrisome in the rural areas of the KMC.

Bhupinder Singh Notana, a resident of Ward 4, said due to the shortage of employees, heaps of garbage are lying unattended in various parts of the ward. Monu Chauhan, councillor Ward 20, said like the urban area, the KMC should focus on its rural areas where proper monitoring is required.

Yudhveer Saini, a councillor of Ward15, said the shortage of staff had hit the cleanliness work. The KMC has floated tender for the maintenance, processing and capacity enhancement of this plant.

Swachh survey likely in Feb-end

The shortage of sanitation workers is also contributing in worsening the situation. The present scenario shows Karnal needs to do a lot to secure better position in the Swachh Survekshan expected in the end of February.