Sambalpur, Aug. 24: Councillors of 15 wards of Sambalpur Municipality today locked the civic body’s office building for two hours protesting against poor sanitation in their respective wards.

Fifteen out of 29 wards in the town are facing a tough time as garbage dumps have been lying on roadsides for over a fortnight. The sanitation squad or the private company, which was entrusted with the responsibility to collect dumped garbage, are allegedly not collecting garbage from these wards. The impasse has been created over awarding of the garbage collection contract to the private company.

“Sambalpur town is about to suffer the Angul way if the sanitation situation does not improve immediately. If the authorities are not taking any urgent step for immediate removal of garbage, water-borne diseases will spread quickly,’’ said a senior official of health and family welfare department, who is currently touring the district to supervise sanitation conditions.

The municipality had called the tender for the sanitation work few days ago. The civic authority had also issued a work order for garbage collection to a private organisation. But the organisation has not yet started lifting garbage as the district administration has intervened and asked for reassessment of the tender.

Two days ago, members of Sambalpur Bar Association gheraoed the municipality’s chairperson. The association members alleged that the municipality had failed to resolve civic problems of the town.

“The town has turned into a dumping yard. One could see the heaps of garbage dumped everywhere. But the civic body is doing nothing to maintain sanitation. Despite the threat of dengue, the sanitation condition here is appalling. The municipality should take pro-active measures for cleanliness drive across the town,” said president of Sambalpur Bar Association, Pramod Rath.

“In several places of the town, drain water is flowing on roads. While the civic body should take immediate measures to solve this problem, it is only concentrating on construction works around the town,” said Rath, adding: “The council should be dissolved immediately as the civic body has failed to meet expectations of the people.”

Sambalpur Municipality’s chairperson Reena Trivedi, however, said the ‘interference’ of district administration had made the civic body helpless.