Hyderabad: The condition of city’s sanitation may worsen over the next few weeks as sanitary field assistants and supervisors who are supposed to monitor cleanliness at the circle level are deployed on election duty.
An immediate fallout of this appears to be that Swachh auto-tippers have not been collecting segregated waste at several colonies even once in two weeks.
Residents across the city claim that due to the irregular visits of the auto-tippers, they were dumping garbage on the road sides, resulting in an increase in the number of garbage vulnerable points (GVPs), which the GHMC said it had eliminated. Residents said the sanitation issue was not resolved even after complaining through myGHMC app. They said the garbage dumped on the road had become a feeding spot for stray dogs.
The amount of garbage said to have been lifted from the city remained same. The corporation says it has been transporting 4,500 metric tonnes of garbage to Jawaharnagar dump yard, even though garbage is not being cleared at several locations.
Officials said the situation would remain the same for at three weeks until the state election commission issues notification for the upcoming elections. Officials said they have been preparing comprehensive plans to resolve sanitation issues. They made it clear that it cannot be resolved without public participation.
Mr K. Amarnath Reddy, a resident of MLA Colony in Banjara Hills, said the Swachh auto-tippers were not visiting the area even once a week. “We cannot store garbage for a week in our houses. After waiting for three days, we are forced to dump it on the road side. If this is the situation in a colony where most VIPs and law-makers reside I can image the trauma of slums and other areas in the city,” he said.
Ms K. Padmavathi, a resident of Nagarjunanagar in Tarnaka, said, “A couple of years ago the GHMC had removed the garbage bins from our colony. Residents have started dumping the garbage on same spot. The garbage was removed for the Swachh Survey. Now, as the Swachh auto-tippers are not turning up, residents are dumping garbage at the same spot.”
She said despite complaints, the GHMC officials had failed to address the issue.
A senior GHMC official said the issue had come to their notice. The corporation cannot provide immediate relief to the residents as most of its staff were deployed on election duty. He admitted that most of the complaints re-opened on the myGHMC app were sanitation-related.
