Filth lies unattended around a vat near Kantatoli Chowk in Ranchi on Wednesday. Picture by Prashant Mitra

Cyclone Phailin that struck Jharkhand on Sunday has left behind its trail of destruction in Ranchi in the form of garbage.

Visit any locality, road or street, you will be greeted with a common sight — heaps of garbage, rotting and stinking.

The state capital is inundated with wastes and needs immediate attention of Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC), all thanks to cyclonic rain and puja revellers.

Durga Puja festivity that was dampened by the incessant showers on Mahaashtami and Navami, had regained momentum on Dashami on October 14, when it rained comparatively lesser.

People came out in droves and thronged the food stalls put up around the Puja pandals in the city.

The revellers littered the area in the vicinity of the food joints with paper plates and cups, plastic bags and kulhars of various sizes.

Morabadi grounds bore the maximum assault of the garbage spillers. The congregation of lakhs of visitors for Ravan Dahan on the occasion of Dussehra turned the lush green into a dumping yard.

Spectators, who witnessed the burning of Ravan’s effigy, munching on chips, nuts, chaat and bhel puri, cluttered the place with plastic wrappers, paper and leaf plates.

Even the façade of former chief minister Shibu Soren and Ranchi’s deputy commissioner Vinay Kumar Choubey’s residences were not spared.

The rain added to the muck and mess and made sprucing up the city a difficult task. As a result, Ranchi is currently wearing a hellish look.

RMC or its partner agency, A2Z Waste Management Pvt. Ltd, who failed to keep their promise of a spic and span city during the Pujas, blamed the cyclone and the subsequent rain for their failure.

When asked, the A2Z officials said that their broom brigade could carry out the special “night drive” to maintain cleanliness only till October 11. “The incessant rain made all our plans go haywire,” an official added.

Chief project manager of A2Z Waste Management Pvt. Ltd R. Srivastava, however, on Wednesday promised to renew the cleanliness drive once the immersion of Durga idols is finally over on Thursday.

“Besides, yesterday and today, we had lesser manpower. The garbage would be cleared from all localities from tomorrow onwards,” Srivastava said.