PMC workers clear garbage from near Gandhi Maidan. Telegraph picture

Patna, Oct. 14: Waste management doesn’t seem to be the cup of tea of Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC). While its irregular garbage collection causes nauseating stench in several pockets of the city, its timing of carting trash triggers traffic snarls in several thoroughfares.

Residents claim that the civic body got the timing of garbage removal grossly wrong. The trash lies unattended in the morning. The civic body’s sanitation workers start carting away garbage during the rush hour, triggering traffic jams on major streets.

Shatabdi Sinha, a resident of Boring Canal Road area, said: “PMC vehicles and trucks come to collect waste during peak hours. This leads to severe traffic congestion on several stretches. The situation turns really bad on narrow roads.”

Suparna Srivastava, a resident of Alpana Market area, said: “The garbage collection and disposal system in the city is outdated. It should be discarded immediately. To begin with, the garbage collection workers are not properly trained. Nor are they provided with the right equipment for the job. Most importantly, the timing of garbage removal is wrong. The sanitation workers collect garbage during peak hours, causing huge pile up of vehicles on main roads.”

Another aggrieved resident of the city, Jagjivan Sharma, said: “The process of transferring the garbage from the vats to trucks is faulty. A significant portion of the trash remains uncollected. Worse, the trucks carting the garbage leave a trail of trash along the way. With the city's expansion and rise in population, the garbage volume has gone up. There should be a proper waste collection policy in place for the city. But like several other civic amenities, this too is lacking. The timing of trash collection is also wrong.”

PMC officials found nothing wrong in their garbage collection timing, though.

“We cart away trash from streets in three shifts — 6am, 12noon and 9pm. People mostly dispose of waste at garbage collection points between 9 and 10 in the morning. Despite our repeated requests, most of the people do not dispose of waste early in the morning. So if we do not cart away the trash in the middle of the day, the sanitation of the city will suffer,” said Sheshank Shekhar Sinha, the executive officer of New Capital circle of PMC.

Claiming that the civic body tries to ensure traffic is not disrupted during the waste collection, he said: “We ensure the trucks are parked on roadside. At the most, the traffic is disturbed for 10-15 minutes for waste collection.”