Old drain flooded with garbage cries for care

Harshraj Singh

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, January 13

An old drain passing near Bhadaur House, Damoria Bridge and other old city areas is crying for urgent attention as it has been flooded with garbage. No concrete steps are being taken by the Municipal Corporation (MC) to stop the solid waste flowing in this drain in which untreated sewage is also being released.

It is learnt that a lot of money was earlier spent on the cleaning of the drain a few years ago, but it is turning into a garbage dump near the Bhadaur House market. Warnings against garbage dumping have been displayed on the safety wall of the drain but to no avail.

Solid waste, including banned plastic carry bags and other waste items, are being dumped into the drain for a long time. It has come to notice that illegal sewer connections of nearby buildings have also been joined with the nullah which is meant to drain out rainwater from old city areas.

A resident of a nearby area, Prince Kumar, said, “It is difficult to pass through the road at the rear of hotels due to the poor sanitary conditions. Some portion of the nullah is open and a huge amount of solid waste is being dumped into the nullah for a long time. The authorities concerned must pay attention towards this and take the necessary steps to stop the dumping of the waste into the drain.”

Former councillor Parminder Mehta said, “Over Rs 1 crore was spent on the cleaning of the nullah around three-four years ago but the nullah is getting choked once again due to the collection of solid waste. Some points of nullah near Talab Bazar, Bhadaur House and other areas have not been covered due to which solid waste is being dumped in the absence of any check. Moreover, there is no check on illegal sewer connections of a number of buildings that have been joined with the drain in the past years.”

“Due to the dumping of the waste, the drain gets choked and rainwater does not get cleared from some old markets of the city. It is the responsibility of the civic body to take the necessary steps to stop pollution in the drain”, he said.

The civic body’s executive engineer Pardeep Saluja said they would check the drain and take the required steps to solve the problem. He further said that the officials concerned would be told to challans those dumping waste into the drain.