Fatehabad. Pile of rubbish in the park in front of the bus stop.
Fatehabad. Pile of rubbish in the park in front of the bus stop.
Surendra Asija/Fatehabad. The municipal council spends several hundred rupees every month on the city’s cleanliness system. The council has floated a tender to an agency for door-to-door garbage collection, which will get around Rs 20 lakh per month. The local council has provided 9 Tata Ace vehicles and drivers to this agency on behalf of the local council, yet garbage can be seen everywhere in the city’s main squares and markets. That is, the garbage collectors collect garbage in small streets and throw it into the landfill, leaving the city dirty until midday.
The situation has become such that the city’s main markets have become garbage dumps. Although the community vehicles come to collect the garbage, the garbage here rots by noon. Every day, around 40 tonnes of garbage from Fatehabad city is brought to the dumping site on Bighad Road. The worst situation arises during monsoons when garbage starts rotting as soon as the rains arrive. Then it will be difficult for residents to even stay in their homes. A few months ago, Haryana State Pollution Board officials came, simply delivered food in the name of a public hearing and left. The sarpanch had expressed his anger in this public hearing.
The municipal council has 27 wards in Fatehabad city. Around 92,000 residents live in these districts. There is a huge shortage of staff in the local council, which is why there are piles of rubbish in various places in the city. Due to the lack of cleaners coming to the colonies every day, residents throw garbage outside on the streets where animals lick it all day long. In summer the foul smell spreads far and wide. Eleven such dump sites have been set up at Fatehabad’s Favwara Chowk, National Highway, Auto Market, Model Town, Jagjivanpura, Beeghar Road, Thana Road, Jawahar Chowk and Dharamshala Road where people throw garbage every day. Although cleaners collect garbage door-to-door in the wards, city residents are forced to live in filth due to mismanagement.
The council pays 2 million rupees every year
The local council has given the agency the contract to clean the city. These include 22 Tata Ace vehicles, loaders, JCBs and tractor trolleys. Of these, 9 Tata Ace vehicles and drivers were handed over to the contractor by the municipal council. This agency collects the garbage door to door and transports it to the landfill. The local council pays them more than 2 million rupees every year. The contractors are disposing of it at a 3-acre landfill on Bighad Road. There are currently 38,000 tons of garbage piled up in the landfill. With this space now occupied, the municipal council has leased 2 acres of adjoining land for Rs 1 lakh 76,000. Garbage is now being dumped here.
More than 20 of the 145 employees perform forced labor in huts.
There is currently a huge shortage of staff in the Fatehabad Municipal Council. After the new demarcation, the workload of employees has also increased due to the inclusion of 6 new colonies in the city. The local council currently employs a total of 145 sanitation workers, including 115 rough workers and 30 permanent employees. Of these, more than 20 employees work in the officers’ quarters. According to the rules, there would have to be one employee for every 400 people, but currently there is one employee for every 1,000 residents. Due to the increasing workload of the employees, their union also repeatedly called for the hiring of new employees.
3 lakhs spent on cleaning 12 toilets, zero result
A total of 15 toilets were built by the local council in the city. Of these, 12 toilets are in working condition while construction work on the rest is still underway. The municipal council spends Rs 3 lakh a month on cleaning work for these 12 toilets. However, city residents complain that these public toilets are dirty. Sanitation workers only occasionally clean these toilets.
Currently, 145 local council employees collect garbage from the colonies every day. Earlier, this waste was dumped at the dumping site on Bighad Road, but after filling 3 acres of land, the municipal council took 2 acres of adjoining land on lease and set up a dumping site there. Now the city’s garbage is dumped this way. ,Mukesh Sharma, Chief Sanitary Inspector Fatehabad
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