Darjeeling municipality started dismantling garbage vats directly

Darjeeling: The municipality has started dismantling garbage vats in town in an effort to streamline door-to-door collection of waste.

The move comes at a time there are reports that a nationwide cleanliness survey conducted by the Centre's housing and urban affairs ministry has suggested that Darjeeling, along with Siliguri, has fared abysmally on all sanitation indicators and have been listed among 25 dirtiest cities in India.

However, the decision to streamline the garbage collection was taken before the report came into public domain.

Sanjib Mothay, the councillor in-charge of conservancy department, Darjeeling municipality, said: "We have dismantled three garbage vats in town as repeated appeals to residents and traders to throw waste before 6am and after 6pm fell on deaf ears."

The Darjeeling civic board plans to dismantle 109 vats in 32 wards.

"We have nine vehicles, each of which collects garbage at least twice a day before 6.30am. We have decided to run the vehicles from 4.30pm to 6pm so that garbage lifting is doubled," said Mothay.

The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha-run municipality has already pressed into service staff who move in town with whistles to alert residents to throw garbage directly into the trucks.

"We are also approaching the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration to increase the number of staff members in the conservancy department," said Mothay.

At the moment, there are 385 cleaners associated with the municipality. While removal of garbage vats is expected to ensure that piles of litter are not seen in town, this is not the first time that the municipality has taken such a step.

"More than a decade back, Pasang Bhutia, the then chairman of Darjeeling municipality, had taken a similar initiative and had converted dumping areas in town into small gardens," said a local resident.

"Door-to-door collection had also started with the help of unemployed youths who used to charge Re 1 per day from every household. The initiative was, however, started as a pilot project in select wards," the resident added.

However, with a change of guard at the Darjeeling municipality, the project was completely scrapped.

The Telegraph