Various organisational and circumstantial factors continue to prevent the municipal corporation of Dehradun from effectively discharging its task of maintaining the desired level of civic sanitation.
Now, considering the Vidhan Sabha 2017 elections, skeptics opine that there might be a possibility of the corporation’s task getting affected by the shifting and focusing of governmental resources and focus on the polls.
The sanitation employees engaged in door to door collection of garbage are on strike demanding timely payment of their wages and clearing their dues. The corporation officials have taken action to overcome the impediments and manage the sanitation work but the level of civic sanitation in the provisional State capital has remained a major problem in the city.
Observers point out that though the MCD and state administration do need to work efficiently for civic sanitation but the core aspect of the whole problem- the public which generates the garbage – has not been addressed by the authorities so far. The people and various commercial and other organisations which generate more than 300 metric tones of solid municipal waste in Dehradun on a daily basis have not even been addressed as stakeholders also responsible for tackling the garbage problem. On condition of anonymity, an official blames the public for not doing its bit towards maintaining the desired level of civic sanitation in the city.
He said, “Even in a place like the Defence Colony which also has offices of various government departments and bodies functioning from rented premises, the people seem unaffected by the heap of garbage festering in the open at a stone’s throw from the railway level crossing. For some time now, there have been complaints about the garbage from the Defence Colony being dumped illegally in various spots just outside the colony’s boundary. It is not as if all the colony residents are irresponsible but if civic sense appears so low in such a locality, one can only imagine what it must be in other areas,” said the official. There is provision in the law for penalising people for littering or dumping garbage illegally in the open but the corporation seldom exercises its official powers in this regard.
“There have been cases of ‘well-educated’ people dumping garbage in neighbouring vacant plots. Some commercial institutions are also known to be doing the same but when it comes to penalising such persons or organisation, influential links and political interference prevents the corporation from taking the necessary action,” he added.
The MCD has also been facing impediments in completing the establishment of its waste treatment plant and trenching ground at Shishambada. Official red-tapism, alleged political motives and protest by a segment of people against the trenching ground at Shishambada have kept this much needed facility from being established and made fully operational as planned.