The municipal strike may have been suspended with sanitation workers getting back to work, but the garbage mess is still the same. Even as the sanitation workers continue to claim that they have begin the cleanliness process and working 24x7 to remove the garbage but the stinking streets and roads in east Delhi tell a different tale altogether.
Areas like Patparganj, Yamuna Vihar, Okhla, laxmi Nagar, Pandav Nagar, Khajoori Khas, Seelampur, Shahdara Geeta Colony, Durgapuri were stinking of garbage as the workers only cleaned the roads leaving aside the heaps of garbage. Garbage pile-ups were also seen near Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, Civil lines, Karol Bagh and Nizzamudin area. Most parts of East Delhi were worst hit as it made it difficult for passerbys to walk through.
“We have begun the work of removing the garbage piles. It will take time as it is the garbage of almost 12 to 13 days. The sanitation workers are doing double shifts; they begin their job at 5 am instead of 7 am and continuously work throughout the day,” said Rajender Mewati, General Secretary of United MCD Front.
If the numbers are anything to go by, around 8,600 metric tonnes of waste is generated daily and the sanitation workers will have to clean up 1,03,200 metric tonnes of waste. The three municipal corporations have 65,000 sanitation workers, 1,500 dhalaos, 500 trucks and thousands of auto-dippers in place to keep up the sanitation services daily.
As per the statistics, the city generates around 8,600 metric tonnes of municipal solid waste daily. SDMC generates 3,200 metric tonnes of solid waste, NMC 2,800 metric tonnes and EDMC generates 2,600 metric tonnes.