Swachhta team comes across dirty corners

Nikhila Pant Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, January 18

The Swachhta Survey 2018 may be going on and a special team may be checking various places of the city but residents of several areas have reasons to call the entire exercise “futile and an eyewash”.

While the team of Karvi Consultant, which is the nodal agency for the survey, continued its survey, residents of Partap Nagar complained that the door-to-door garbage collection in their area was irregular and that the garbage had not been collected for the past three days.

“The MCB is aiming to bag the number one position in the state in the Swachhta Survey this year, but the company to which the work of garbage collection has been given is not functioning properly. Garbage has not been collected from our locality for three days now. The company makes no alternative arrangement in case a worker is on leave,” said Surinder Kaur, a resident of Partap Nagar.

Ravi, a resident of Dhobiana Basti, claimed that when the Swachhta Survey team had visited the area, he had shown the team heaps of garbage lying by the roadside.

“The survey seems to be a mere formality. The MCB has beautified major locations in the city but continues to ignore some areas. I had shown the garbage heaps to the survey team yesterday but the heaps are lying here today as well,” he said.

Vacant plots around the city also told a similar tale. Owing to irregular door-to-door garbage collection in several localities of the city, residents often resort to emptying the dustbins in the vacant plots in the vicinity.

Meanwhile, the survey team could visit areas of only about 15 wards till today and is yet to visit 35 wards of the city.

Sources claimed that the survey might continue till Tuesday. Last year, the survey was completed in three days. This year, there is also a provision for negative marking in case the MCB’s claims turn out to be false.

Today, the team visited Rose Garden to check the functioning of the green waste reprocessing machine.

It also checked public toilets in Dhobiana Basti, Ward Number 12, Hajirattan Chowk, Chandsar Basti, Ajit Road, Ghorewala chowk and other places.

Officials interacted with residents and shopkeepers near the Civil Hospital and checked if they were satisfied with the cleanliness conditions in the city.