Hyderabad: Jalpally civic body out to rev up sanitation drive

Rajendranagar: With a view to pick up a movement against littering in wards, the Jalpally municipality, on the city outskirts, has embarked on a door-to-door collection by employing a new fleet of vehicles to collect trash and dispose it safely.

Spread over 30 square km, the civic body consists of 28 wards with a population of 80,374 (as per 2011 Census) and has 23,961 families. With 32 tonnes of garbage a day, the municipality struggles to find a suitable place to dump it. Dealing with the issue is a regular task for the sanitary staff. Sensing the enormity of the issue pertaining to transportation of garbage, Education Minister P Sabitha Indra Reddy, who represents the Maheshwaram constituency, gave nod to a proposal to purchase new vehicles, through the municipal council, to help the sanitation staff cover more areas through door-to-door garbage collection.

"Nearly 20 more Swachh autos and a Gulfer machine were purchased recently in addition to already existing eight four-wheelers, two three-wheelers, four tractors, besides a JCB machine.

Augmentation of the fleet helped the municipality to ratchet up the sanitation drive throughout Jalpally. The sanitary staff was told to gear up to address the issue more exuberantly," informed G P Kumar, Commissioner, Jalpally Municipality.

Apart from this, he said, awareness programmes regarding segregation of garbage are also being held to educate more people about the importance of separating wet from dry waste before disposing it to the collection team. "Though the Jalpally municipality is not fortunate enough in terms of having facility, like dumping yard, officials have gone into a huddle on several occasions to bring more ideas into play on the instructions of Ranga Reddy district collector. They are planning accordingly to turn ideas into movement by bringing men and machinery together into action," the official explained.