Garbage dumped near Lingaraj temple at Old Town in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 26: The state government seems to have forgotten about its promise to clean the surroundings of major historical monuments at Old Town.

On World Heritage Day on April 18, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and tourism and culture departments had promised to clean the premises of 10 selected monuments. But today, on the eve of World Tourism Day, the surroundings of many beautiful and ancient monuments in the city remain filthy and littered with garbage dumps.

Garbage generated by roadside vendors, fruit sellers and other users are lying in the open near the 11th century Lingaraj temple wall, while the 7th century Parsurameswar temple has an overflowing garbage bin.

Even the position of the garbage bin, which is placed near the beautifully crafted marvel in stone, surprises many.

Rashmi Mohapatra, convenor, Ekamra Vikash Manch, an outfit working for the development of Bhubaneswar, said: “The civic authorities, culture department and Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) are to be blamed for this mess. Though the upkeep of the environment at Old Town comes under the purview of the civic body and the Centre has provisions under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission for the same, no step has been taken to clean the well-known historical monuments.

“Many roads such as Kedar Gouri Road near Parsurameswar temple are already badly damaged due to sewer pipeline laying work.”

“The garbage dump near Parsurameswar temple displays our callous attitude and also that the authorities are not concerned about the state of the environment around the structure. If they have put a garbage bin, then it has to be cleaned on a daily basis,’’ said Mohapatra.

The twin temples of Subarneswar and Nageswar on the bank of the natural drainage channel No. 7 near Kotitirtheswar Lane belong to the 10th century.

However, the beautiful structures are subjected to harmful surrounding such as weeds, wastes carried by the channel and unplanned housing activity.

After launching the ambitious Clean Bhubaneswar Campaign, the civic body had declared that the city would have clean surroundings around heritage sites.

As part of the initiative, BMC workers under sanitation contractors took extra care to clean the areas surrounding the 10 selected monuments — Rajarani, Mukteswar, Parasurameswar, Swarnajaleswar, Kotitirtheswar, Ananta Basudev, Papanasini, Vaital temples and Ekamra Vana.

BMC sanitation squads also placed more dustbins near these temples for better collection of waste products.

Speaking to The Telegraph on World Heritage Day, the then city health officer, Ashok Panda, had said that the BMC had augmented the enforcement with addition of two more dustbins at each temple and asked the workers to ensure that heritage structures were also given importance under the Clean Bhubaneswar Campaign.

“Keeping in view the future plan of tourism and culture department to launch a heritage trail in the city, an inter-departmental meeting was held on the first week of April and it was decided that funds for the cleaning process would come from the tourism department,” Panda had said.

Reacting to the cleaning drive near the temples, a senior BMC official today said: “The BMC has again taken up a special drive to clean the ancient structures, but it has to use its own resources as no other stakeholder is paying us anything in this regard. Even when the drive was launched on World Heritage Day near Rajarani Temple on April 18, there was not a single official from the culture department present.’’

Lack of coordination among BMC, ASI and the panchayati raj department, a drainage channel from the pond of the Megheswar Temple is yet to be constructed and waterlogging is even harming the main temple.

“While the area was free from housing construction activity a decade ago, the unplanned structures blocked the flow of the pond outlet. Though the drainage area comes under panchayati raj department, ASI and BMC authorities should coordinate with each other,” said Ashok Singh, councillor of ward No. 50.