Why Piles of Waste Still on City Streets, When There’s Door to Door Pick-Up by AWHCPL?

Why Piles of Waste Still on City Streets, When There’s Door to Door Pick-Up by AWHCPL?

Why Piles of Garbage Still on City Streets, When There’s Door to Door Pick-Up by Antony Waste Handling Cell Pvt Ltd ( AWHCPL)? Just look at pictures in this report, when piles of waste was gathered on the streets when pourakarmikas of AWHCPL had taken one/two days off to go voting in their respective hometowns. Just imagine, what would have been the situation if the workers didn’t show up for 3-4 days.

Mangaluru : Why STILL piles of garbage on Cit roads, when Antony Waste Handling Cell Pvt Ltd {AWHCPL} does door to door Pick-Up- this Mumbai based Company handles City’s Waste Disposal at a Cost of Rs 18 Crore Annually- so what good is it if garbage is still scattered in many parts of the City. When Mangaluru is considered to be ONE of the CLEANEST city in the nation, the scenes of garbage piled up here and there in the City, shows a wrong image. Even though the City streets are plagued with waste every single day, especially in the heart of the City, but other day, when the pourakarmikas of AWHCPL had taken a day off (some of them didn’t come back for two days) to go to their hometown to vote, and back here in Mangaluru, the City wore a ugly look with huge piles of waste seen at various spots, since it was not cleaned by AWHCPL, due to shortage of staff.

In one way you can blame the pourakarmikas for their negligence and for not informing well in advance of their plans to take one or two days off, so that proper arrangements could have been made by the Company in handling the waste- but mostly, on the other hand, we need to fully blame the citizens of Mangaluru for still being ignorant and dumping waste on the streets, in spite of various awareness programmes done by several organizations to keep the City clean. Seems like a total abuse towards the Swachh Bharath Abhiyan implemented by PM Narendra Modi. The question still people ask is that, why even educated people in this “Education Hub” are so careless and ignorant when it comes to cleanliness, who are the main culprits in this abuse of Swachh, when compared to uneducated people. Bah humbug!

Five years ago, Mangaluru City corporation switched from nine contractors who were handling the City’s disposal of solid waste from 60 wards in the city, to a single contractor based in Mumbai, named Antony Waste Handling Pvt Ltd who took charge of garbage disposal in Mangaluru starting December 2014, including door-to-door garbage collection, transportation of waste, street sweeping, divider cleaning, vegetation cutting/trimming and various other sanitation work. The main intention of MCC was to prevent residents and others disposing garbage on streets- but sadly if you go around the City now, you’ll notice piles of garbage at many spots.

By awarding this job to the single Mumbai contractor the MCC lessened the burden by dealing with nearly nine contractors who were hauling the city’s waste. Even though MCC was spending nearly Rs 11 crore annually paying the nine contractors, but agreed to pay Rs 17.62 crore annually, to the Mumbai based company since they use all hydraulic vehicles to collect door-to-door waste collection, then also transport the waste to the compost plant in Pachchanady, and also all their vehicles have GPS equipment, and they will also clean streets and three beaches.

But even after paying such a huge sum of money to AWHCPL to do the door-to-door collection of garbage, its sad to note that garbage is still littered on the streets by citizens of Mangaluru, every single day- and the proof is the pictures in this report ( taken only at a few locations- imagine what would be the scene in other spots) Why is no one taking action against this? While volunteers of Ramakrishna Mission, and other organizations are doing community service by trying to keep Mangaluru, it is indeed ignorant on the part of the citizens to litter waste wherever they feel like.

Everyone learns by their past mistakes, but SURELY NOT in the case of Mangaluru City Corporation. Even after they had experienced such garbage littering issues in the past, still they are reluctant in rectifying the problems. Even though Mangaluru is proud enough to say it is a “Smart City”, but is surely lacking of “Smart Officials” at the helm of it. Featured as one of the cleanest city in India- our educational coastal town needs to improve.Sadly, to note that not even the third cleanest city in the country, and second cleanest city in Karnataka-Namma Kudla could save itself from the public litter. Stray animals and crows scavenged on leftovers. It’s time that authorities start slapping fines if cleanliness is not maintained or if they catch someone littering in the public. What are our officials waiting for? Take action immediately, and see that Mangaluru remains CLEAN, and not just boast of the clean city status, this city is christened with.

Is this what “Clean India” campaign that we are looking forward to, that too being educated citizens of India, where Mangaluru is considered as the Education hub. Can’t we learn from our past mistakes? If we think that there are people to clean our mess, then why even practice or observe “Swachh Bharath” campaign. In conclusion, if our citizens can’t keep their surroundings clean, and ignore “Swachh Bharath Abhiyan”, how can we ever think of having a Clean India or Clean Mangaluru. We need to enforce strict laws and punish those who litter in the public, then only we can look forward for “Swachh Bharath” and for that matter “Swachh Mangaluru”!-If not PM Modi’s “Swachh Bharath” will NOT be his dream come true!

Let’s work together and see that we keep our surroundings clean. Remember we should learn from our mistakes to change, and not continuing our old habits. And let’s remember to make “Namma Mangaluru, Swachha Mangaluru!”.