Bhubaneswar, March 10: The public works department (PWD) has started erecting a boundary wall along the newly built four-lane road passing behind Sainik School to separate it from a dump yard.

The Telegraph on February 28 carried a report on the road being covered by garbage, as a dump yard of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation is located at the same spot. Both the PWD and the civic authorities were blaming each other for such mess.

A few commuters use the stretch that was widened to ease the communication problem of the nearby residents and shorten the distance between VSS Nagar and Acharya Vihar.

“We have started constructing the boundary wall along the road, separating it from the dump yard, so that the garbage dumped roadside would not spill onto the road,” said a PWD officer.

The official said there should not be a dump yard on the stretch, which earlier used to be a 25-feet wide lane. “We thought that they would not dump garbage here as it was near the city. But, as the corporation is not ready to stop the practice, we preferred erecting a boundary wall to prevent the garbage to come onto the road,” said the officer.

The civic body’s health official, who is in charge of garbage dumping, told The Telegraph that the government had allotted this land to them for transit dumping purpose and they would keep dumping garbage here.

Sources said this road was the part of a 1km stretch connecting VSS Nagar and the main road near the Mahanadi Coalfield Limited (MCL) guesthouse near Government Colony adjacent to Sainik School. The road comes handy for residents of Railway Colony, Sainik School, Government Colony and the nearby village and slums.

The road connecting VSS Nagar to the end of the dump yard near Dasharathi temple behind Sainik School was converted into a 50-ft wide road and four-lane structure last year with a small portion currently under construction. A PWD official said that in future, it would be developed into a six-lane stretch or 100-ft wide road, according to the master plan of the Bhubaneswar Development Authority.

However, commuters said that though they would be spared from the eyesore after construction of the boundary wall, the stink would definitely affect them. Besides, they also complained that the garbage-carrying vehicles plying through the road pose threat to pedestrians.

“The authorities should take a definite step to remove this transit garbage dump yard from this place to any other spot on the outskirts,” said VSS Nagar resident Sourav Tripathy.