Underground ‘sensor’ dustbins in Dharamsala to be junked

Tribune News Service

Lalit Mohan

Dharamsala, January 29

Underground dustbins that were installed in Dharamsala under the ‘revolutionary scheme’ for waste management will be junked by the Municipal Corporation. Sources here said that the Dharamsala MC has initiated a move to scrap about 170 underground dustbins placed at various places in the city.

Door-to-door WASTE collection ON CARDS

The underground dustbins are not serving the purpose so the MC has decided to junk them. Instead, the civic body is planning to initiate effective door-to-door collection of garbage in the entire city. — Anurag Chander Sharma, Commissioner, MC, Dharamsala

The underground dustbins were installed in Dharamsala in the year 2016. It was claimed by the then Congress government that Dharamsala was the first city in India to have sensor-based underground dustbins.

As per the scheme introduced by the then Congress government, 225 underground dustbins having technology imported from Holland were to be installed in different parts of the city.

The total cost of installing these dustbins was about Rs 12 crore.

It was claimed that dustbins would have sensor-based technology through which the authorities would come to know about the filling status of the dustbins on their mobile phones. This would enable them to clear the dustbins in a time-bound manner. However, sources said that the sensor technology was never supplied by the suppliers.

Commissioner of Dharamsala MC Anurag Chander Sharma, when asked, said the underground dustbins were not serving the purpose.

Hence, the MC had decided to junk them. Instead, the MC was planning to initiate effective door-to-door collection of garbage in the entire city. When asked, the Commissioner admitted that no sensor-based technology was there in underground dustbins installed in Dharamsala.

The scheme to install underground dustbins had drawn flak from many at the time of installation.

Many experts had questioned the logic behind installing such costly underground dustbins in Dharamsala. They alleged that since Dharamsala city received a lot of rain the underground dustbins would not prove successful in the city.

The Dharamsala MC had also been receiving complaints from citizens regarding litter around the underground dustbins and delay in clearing dustbins.

The people were expecting that the MC authorities would come to know when the dustbins were cleared due to sensor technology. However, since no such technology was available, there was litter and filth around the underground dustbins.

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