Small drums but great concerns— this is the state of localities where small oil drums have been placed to give a suitable option to dump garbage but these smaller version of bigger metallic bins lie unattended for the most part of any given day. Result, garbage popping bins inundated in garbage spread around thus making some of the councilors to question the success of the entire project.
The Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) has placed around 1,400 such garbage collecting drums in all 55 municipal wards. However irrespective of the volume, lifting garbage from the smaller bins is being done simultaneously with the larger ones and for the as many times as the bigger metallic bins are cleaned.
The only exception to the problem is VVIP zones like the Morhabadi where not only the bins are more in number but taken proper care of and garbage is regularly lifted.
“My personal opinion is that the project is a failure except at places where it has been put on demand. At most of the places either has been turned upside down or taken away. And wherever they are visible cleanliness has been compromised. I had once raised this point with the officials that this project is actually a waste of money,” said councilor of ward-37, AK Jha.
Placing small metallic bins to dump litter was conceived in July, 2014 however despite introducing the measures to address the problems of littering of streets and public places clubbing garbage collection with the usual method seems to be a mistake which the RMC has realised.
The urban civic body is now contemplating a separate measure for the keep the drums free of garbage. For the moment these tiny drums are food paradise for canines and swine. According to sources, the RMC had spent around Rs10 lakh on the project.
“This problem is in our knowledge from a very long time and we are thinking of addressing the problem. Soon something concrete will come up to address this problem,” said Additional Municipal Commissioner, Om Prakash Shah.
The project, a brainchild of former Chief Secretary Sajal Chakraverty, was named as ‘Touch-Up Programme’, and was part of the garbage lifting process that is done through a tractor that roams in each ward between 6 am and 3.30 pm to collect waste from every possible collecting bin.
Interestingly, the RMC claims that the waste management process has suffered due to fund crunch and poor revenue generation through ‘user charge’ that is supposed to be collected from each household for giving waste disposal services.