Trash inundating city: Locals

Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) decision to reduce the number of garbage vehicles and reroute their path has resulted in several parts of the city oozing with trash. People have asked the civic body to resolve the problem with immediate effect to prevent unhygienic conditions from prevailing during the festive season.

According to civic activists, in several areas such as Sion, Matunga, Mankhurd, Govandi and Shivaji Nagar, trash has been lying on roads, causing an inconvenience to residents. Garbage has not been lifted for a couple of days, raising the possibility of creating pollution, they said.

Civic activist and Matunga resident Nikhil Desai said, “There is garbage everywhere on the roads in the F-North ward. When I made an inquiry, I was told that the BMC had reduced the number of garbage-collecting compactors. In F-North ward, about ten compactors have been reduced from the beginning of the month.”

According to civic officials, the BMC, from Nov-ember 1, reduced 20 per cent of garbage vehicles, claiming that there is a drop in the quantity of waste generated.

Deputy municipal commissioner Vishwas Shankarwar said, “Earlier the city used to generate 9,000 metric tonnes of waste, which has now come down to 7,200 metric tonnes. The earlier five-year-old contract (from 2012 to 2017) for the collection of garbage was based on the previous quantity. Now that the quantity is reduced, the number of vehicles has also been reduced proportionately in the new contract. Accordingly, the rerouting of vehicles has become necessary according to their capacity.”

Mr Shankarwar admitted that there are some problems in the lifting of garbage during the initial phase of contract implementation.

“We are checking whet-her the problem has happened due to the rerouting of vehicles or the increase in waste. Vehi-cles have increased in pl-aces where there were fewer vehicles. But in are-as where the vehicles are underloaded, they have been asked to reroute,” Mr Shankarwar added.