Dharamsala: Residents seek immediate removal of underground bins

Dharamsala, July 12

An underground dustbin placed by the Dharamsala Municipal Corporation in front of a house, owned by Dr Shashi Sharma, in Ward No.17 tells the ground reality of Dharamsala. The corporation, paying no heed to the electricity wires passing overhead, placed the dustbin here beneath the hanging wires.

With the fear of getting caught in these wires, the corporation’s vehicle, employed to lift its bins, abandoned the dustbin and since then it is lying out of use and locked.

Dharamsala stood 35th in swachh ranking

• Many people, who are unaware that the dustbins are no longer being attended to by the MC authorities, are still throwing garbage around these
• The garbage scattered around these underground dustbins, placed around the town, has brought a bad name to Dharamsala, resulting in downgrading from the top position to 35th in the sanitation survey conducted by the ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’

Some people of the locality, who are unaware that the facility is no longer being attended to by the municipal authorities, are still throwing garbage around it in the monsoon rains. Residents have urged the civic body to remove the dustbin at the earliest. Dhani Ram Awasthi, a resident of the area, said, “The electricity wires have been passing through this area for a long time and no attention was paid to this while placing the dustbin here. The contractor hurriedly got these dustbins installed in the town. There was no plan and participation of the residents in this initiative and, surprisingly, no employee of the corporation ever visited the site.”

The plight of other wards in the Smart City is the same. In Ward No.11, another dustbin is locked as it has been fixed below live electricity wires. To make the situation worse, a transformer was later erected here, making it extremely dangerous for the crane to lift the bin. The dustbin is now locked which speaks for the poor initial planning on part of the corporation.

“It is the garbage scattered around these underground dustbins placed around the town, which has brought a bad name to Dharamsala, resulting in downgrading from the top position to 35th in the sanitation survey conducted by the Swachh Bharat Mission,” said a resident.