The Hindu : Karnataka News : Waste collection scheme evokes good response

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Monday, Feb 21, 2011
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Karnataka

Karnataka

Waste collection scheme evokes good response

Firoz Rozindar

The system was introduced in Chitradurga a fortnight ago

Initially, 40 per cent of houses are being covered under the scheme
Municipal council to procure six more vehicles to extend the facility to all houses

NEW FACILITY:A municipal worker putting the garbage into the jeep in Chitradurga.

Chitradurga: The door-to-door collection of garbage through refuse collector units introduced by the Chitradurga City Municipal Council about a fortnight ago has evoked good response from the public.

The municipal council, which was hitherto being criticised by the people for poor maintenance, has decided to use sophisticated machines to address the problem. The garbage is being collected from every house in jeeps with containers mounted on the rear side.

In the first phase, the municipal council has procured five such vehicles to collect the garbage from about 8,000 of around 25,000 houses here, according to Municipal Commissioner Vijay Kumar.

Mr. Kumar told The Hindu that earlier, pushcarts and tricycles were being used for collecting the garbage through self-help groups, which had been given the contract.

“But of late, a certain laxity was noticed in their functioning. Moreover, the pushcarts and tricycles had limited space and the garbage could be collected only from about 100 houses at a time. After the collection, the garbage had to be dumped into another vehicle to transport it to the landfill site in the outskirts of the city for segregation. But now the five jeeps collect garbage from nearly 1,500 houses at a time and directly unload it at the landfill site,” he said.

Mr. Kumar said that there were 35 wards in Chitradurga and initially only 40 per cent of the houses were being covered under the garbage collection scheme. It would be extended to all the houses in the coming days after purchasing at least six more vehicles for the purpose.

Stating that around 50 tonnes of waste was being collected everyday here, he said that a large chunk of it came from the vegetable market.

Raghuram Reddy, municipal member, expressed happiness over the good response from the public and said that he was now a relieved person because there were no complaints from the people about garbage not being cleared.

Earlier, the people were dumping the garbage on roadsides as there was no proper system for its collection. “The sewage was getting blocked every now and then and posing a huge problem to get it cleared,” he said.

Mr. Reddy, however, said that more awareness had to be created among the people about the system because the dumping of garbage on roadsides was still a problem in some areas.

The Chitradurga City Municipal Council bagged an award for setting up the best information centre at the recently concluded “Municipalica”, an exhibition, in Bangalore.

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