Vijayawada: Sanitation takes a back seat in the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation.The city, with a population of more than one million has only 2,984 sanitary workers to clean 44 sanitary divisions in an extent of 61.88sq.kms area.
Daily 550 MT of garbage is generated in the city of which 300MT is generated directly from households and dumped into dumper bins on the streets.
It is transported to three points for dumping at excel plant, Sriram Energy and Bio-Mechanisation plants.
In all, 2,984 sanitary workers of whom 50% are out-sourced from DWCUA and CMEY, are engaged in two shifts for sweeping all the main roads and commercial establishments.
Out of them 500 workers collect garbage from door-to-door. Apart from it being highly impossible for the workers to cover the entire city, the VMC has insufficient dumper bins, which have to be placed in the streets to collect the garbage.
Cleaning of open dra-ins, anti-larval operations and fogging should be done only by these available workers, which has become a difficult task. Some areas are stinking with huge garbage piled on the street corners. Garbage was not lifted at many places in the city. Garbage bins overflow with stinking smell posing health hazards to the people.
“Daily passing through heaps of garbage piled up on either side of main road in Autonnagar with stinking smell, makes me sick. I request the VMC to clear the garbage,” said Srinivas Rao of Vijaya-lakshmi Apartments in Autonagar.
“Dustbins filled up with garbage are not cleared in the colony for many days breading mosquitoes,” says Prasad Reddy, a govenment employees residing in Singh Nagar.
“In One Town area, garbage is stacked and drainages overflow. We are unable to bear the smell. It gets worse in rainy days. We cannot even enter the market,” says Durga Rao of KR Market area.
“Inadequate staff and lack of machinery has worsened the santotation in the city,” admits chief health officer of the municipal corporation Gopi Naik.
