The works undertaken by the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun to prevent water logging in the town appear to be having little effect as rainy days find many roads and localities water-logged in the State capital.
The Municipal officials state that they are making the best use of available resources while the citizens complain that this is not enough. Observers point out that improper garbage dumping by the public and the failure of the MCD to penalise this violation is one of the main reasons for sewers getting choked with garbage which exacerbates water logging.
It is pertinent to mention here that following the disaster experienced in Uttarakhand in June, employees of the MCD were also deployed to help in the rescue and relief measures. This had affected the sanitation and civic facilitation work of the corporation. The MCD has been cleaning the roadside sewer for some time now but this has not had the desired effect.
Officials state that garbage piled on the roadsides and near sewers ends up in the sewers following rains and chokes them. Chocked sewers and encroachments are among the major factors apart from unplanned urbanisation which are responsible for water logging in town.
Municipal officials state that they are making the best use of the limited resources available to mitigate water logging. However, observers point out that the corporation is working in inefficiently as it has consistently failed to address the main reason responsible for choked sewers. Citizens around the town and traders too continue to dump garbage either in the open or directly into sewers.
The corporation can penalise people for improperly dumping garbage and officials have often said in the past that they will do so.However, very few have been penalised so far for dumping garbage wrongly in the open or in sewers barring a few dairies, the owners of which were penalised once which has not prevented them from dumping dung in sewers.
Many people also refuse to pay the nominal monthly user charges of up to Rs 30 to the Doon Valley Waste Management employees who undertake door to door collection of garbage.The corporation has remained apathetic to the improper dumping of garbage and continues to clean sewers during monsoon which has little effect.