‘State’s dirtiest city’ tag fails to improve situation in Muktsar

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Muktsar, June 25

It has been one and a half months since Muktsar was declared the dirtiest city in the state and got 428th rank in the list of 434 cities in the country in Swachh Survekshan-2017, but the local Municipal Council authorities are finding it difficult to remove this blot from their face.

Heaps of garbage are still lying in almost every nook and corner in the city, including main roads. Further, stray cattle have increased the worries of commuters.

Though some social organisations along with the administration have tried to spread awareness among people and asked officials concerned to work diligently, the situation has hardly improved. People are still throwing garbage on roads and sweepers, who are already less in number, are finding it difficult to maintain cleanliness. The shortage of garbage containers is yet to be addressed.

Further, the garbage dumping site over a three-acre land is full to its capacity and unable to take in more trash. Officials in the Municipal Council said the same garbage dumping site was being used from the last 20 years. “We are trying to purchase or get a six-acre land at Akalgarh village on lease to use it as a garbage dumping site,” said Davinder Singh, Sanitary Inspector, Municipal Council, Muktsar.

He said, “We have nearly 80 sweepers against the total requirement of about 300 sweepers, still we are trying our best. The work of the door-to-door garbage collection was given to a private company, which is not functioning. Once we hire more staff, we will start door-to-door garbage collection, which is presently being manned by private sweepers at their own level. Now, we have made 12 secondary garbage dumping points in the town, from where our sweepers collect the garbage in three tractor-trailers and dump it outside the town. We need two more tractor-trailers for this purpose.”

The sanitary inspector added, “We don’t even have an earth-moving machine for the disposal of garbage and are presently doing the job with a tractor. We have a proposal to cover all 12 secondary garbage dumping points in the town. Besides, local citizens should also maintain cleanliness and cooperate with us.”