Balangir: The civic body has launched a dust-cleaning drive in the town after drawing flaks from all quarters for its indifference on the issue that has assumed alarming proportion in the recent days.

A team of workers from the Balangir Municipality had recently started cleaning the accumulated dust on the road of the town.

As a part of the drive, the workers cleaned dust from the half-kilometre stretch between Bhagirathi Chowk to Omkar Chowk on Saturday. Municipality chairperson Santoshini Behera was present during the drive to supervise the work.

Sources said the drive would be a regular affair. Earlier, several organisations had threatened to hit the street if the municipality did not take steps to address the dust issue. Local resident Tarini Prasad Sahu said it was a welcome move by the municipality.

"Let this be a regular feature. It should have been started much earlier. The issue of dust pollution has already reached such a point that might lead to serious health hazards. The municipality should regularly clean the dust in the town," he said.

A local resident said widening of various roads and felling of roadside trees had added to the dust problem. He said several ongoing projects to widen roads, for which many heritage trees had been felled, further compounded the situation.

A road dust cleaner, purchased by the municipality, has developed technical snag and is found stationed on the premise of the municipality office without being used.

Behera said the dust-cleaning machine could not be used as it had developed technical problem. "At present, we have started the dust cleaning drive manually. It will be taken up time to time at various parts of the town and it will be a regular feature," Behera said.

She said that once the road dust-cleaner was repaired, it would be easy on the part of the municipality to curb the dust issue in the town.