Garbage pickers collect hefty charges in hyderabad city

Hyderabad: The locals across the city are raising alarms against the GHMC trash contractors and door-to-door garbage-pickers as they have started collecting higher monthly payments from the residents in some areas in the name of humanity and without issuing any receipts.

The workers are browbeating locals to either pay Rs 200 per month as a contribution for Swachh Hyderabad or the garbage will not be picked up. Normally, the decided amount was Rs 50 for picking up garbage every day. However, the locals claim that the sanitary workers come twice or thrice in a week to pick trash. When asked, sanitary officials said it is needed for the maintenance of vehicles.

People even suspect a nexus between the sanitary men and GHMC officials as the latter cite helplessness in curbing this menace. Amit Kumar, a resident of Country Estate Colony, Kapra, says, "The workers here are charging Rs 100 per house to pick up garbage. The problem here is the workers come twice or thrice in a week to collect the garbage and ask us to pay Rs 100. When refused, they browbeat us, saying they won't take the garbage."

Ravi Kumar, another resident of LB Nagar, says the workers sometimes ask Rs 150 and in a different area they ask Rs 200 and Rs 100. He says, "We are okay with the collection fees but why the GHMC has not come up with a fixed price in all areas." The intention to start the Swachh autos by GHMC is to curb garbage dumping and collect waste from every household.

"The decided amount was Rs 50 which was to be collected from each house, as the demand for the autos is very high the workers have to cover extra colonies and houses which take a toll on the vehicle as well as the worker himself.

The autos are not in complete control of GHMC. We are working on that and an additional 1,000 autos proposal is being put up for sanction. Idea is to streamline the system among workers and colony residents," said Sujatha Gupta, Additional Commissioner Sanitation Wing GHMC.