Steep rise in garbage collection in hyderabad city

Hyderabad: That the city is bursting at the seams is a foregone conclusion and with it comes the mounting garbage. Suresh, Chief Transport Officer, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) said four years ago, 3,500 metric tonnes of garbage was generated in the city every day, but now, it has risen to 5,000 metric tonnes.

Explaining the need to clear the garbage in the evenings as well, a senior official said, "In spite of door-to-door collection, people accumulate enough garbage and dump it in the bins. As a result, the bins get full and there is a lot of spillage."

In the last three years, a number of tiffin centres and take away joints have sprung up in almost every locality. These eateries dump their waste in the bins. For instance, Madhav Rao, a resident of Sainathpuram, says, "In a radius of 200 metres, there are 10 tiffin centres and each one closes shop at different points of time, starting from 8:30 to 12 noon. Before closing for the day they dispose the garbage in the bins."

Every day, around 2,500 Swachh auto-trolleys collect the garbage from door to door in all the circles across the city and dump in the garbage containers which were kept in the residential areas as well as on the roadsides. Then mini tippers, trucks and bob cots would lift the garbage from the containers and shift to the designated places.

Again, trucks and bob cots would have come on the next morning to lift the garbage from the containers and most of the time garbage overflows and spreads out on the roads. GHMC Commissioner Dana Kishore has decided to deploy four vehicles as well as bob cots to each circle to lift garbage from the container so that city would be remain clean till next morning.

GHMC officials said that existing trucks and mini tippers were sufficient to commence evening garbage clearance work. Every day, about 5,250 metric tonnes of garbage which includes wet and dry waste is generated in the city. Existing vehicles and manpower were sufficient to start the garbage lifting in the evening from containers and we use four bob cots and trucks with four workers to lift the garbage from the bins, he said.

The municipal corporation utilises nearly 500 trucks which includes mini tippers and over 16,000 workers for collection and disposal of waste generated in all the circles across the city.

These vehicles have a total capacity of 6 tonnes and would be operated in trips during morning and evening. Each vehicle would operate three trips and will have to dump the waste at the transfer station in the respective municipal circles, said GHMC officials.

Speaking to The Hans India here on Wednesday, K Amareshwar, member of Bhagyanagar Municipal Employees Union, said that, "GHMC is not implementing the garbage lifting work properly and now they are saying that they will lift the garbage from bins in the evening, which is not going to yield any results."