Not deploying extra staff for Swachh Delhi Abhiyan, say civic bodies

NEW DELHI: Day two of the Swachh Delhi Abhiyan was almost as uneventful as the inugaural day with the cleanliness drive, started as a joint initiative of Delhi government and municipal corporations, restricted to just removal of garbage and malba. Sanitation issues, such as cleaning of toilets, continue to be neglected. The various corporations dispose of around 8,000 tonnes of garbage on a daily basis; no efforts have been made so far to step up the operations.

Corporation officials said if the agencies manage to dispose of the garbage in capital, that would be an achieve ment in itself. “There are irregularities in the garbage disposal and if this drive focusses only on that, it will be a big achievement for the corporation,“ said a senior official.

RWAs claim that, in the past two days, they have not witnessed any extensive cleaning drive taking place in their colonies or anywhere across the city .“The condition of the dhalao at our colony remains as terrible as ever. We have seen no major activity since the launch of the drive,“ said BM Bakshi, RWA president of New Friends Colony.

The mayors claim they have sufficient staff and no additional men will be deployed despite the release of Rs 82.6 crore by the Delhi government for the drive from the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan funds. “The government is not providing any additional funds and we have sufficient staff to carry out the drive,“ said Ravinder Gupta, mayor of North Corporation.

Harsh Malhotra, mayor of East Corporation, said they have set up a committee to review the progress of the drive on a daily basis.

However, there appears to be no efforts on the part of the civic agencies to sensitise the citizens about the drive. Residents say this is no way of initiating a campaign if the locals are not involved.

The maximum number of complaints has come from south Delhi. “The civic agencies, or the government, haven't devised any particular mechanism or action plan. Only advertising about the drive is not going to help. There is no public participation; on the ground, nothing has happened,“ said Chetan Sharma, chairman of federation of RWA of GK-II.

Sharma said the existing landfill sites are already clogged with tonnes of garbage and now have no space to accommodate more. “The landfill sites have no space to accommodate more garbage and the government should consider processing units on a smaller scale rather than setting up a big plant. If parks at every colony have one small processing unit, there will no issue of irregularities in disposal of garbage and, gradually , it will bring down the load on landfill sites,“ said Sharma.