A week-long special drive in Calcutta and New Town to spot vulnerable garbage accumulation points concluded on Tuesday.

Citizens were asked to WhatsApp their complaints about garbage to a number provided by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA).

The Telegraph spoke to officials of the KMC and NKDA on what they found and measures they are planning.

Waking up late

New-age jobs keep many up till late in the night. They are unable to wake up when the waste collector comes in the morning for door-to-door collection. A KMC official said many have a habit of throwing waste on the road in the afternoon.

In most places, the morning waste collection begins from 6am. Each waste collector is assigned a route and has to pick up waste from houses on the route. The houses that fall towards the beginning of the route are the ones where the waste collector reaches early in the morning.

“Our waste collectors have for long seen there are some houses or flats from where no one comes to throw the day’s waste. The residents of many of these flats have to work till late into the night and are still sleeping when the morning waste collection starts,” said the official.

Vacant plots

A trend across the Calcutta municipal area and New Town is littering vacant plots with garbage.

Of the 610 complaints received by the KMC between May 28 and June 3, a significant number was about garbage-filled vacant plots.

“This is worrying, especially since monsoon is almost here. The waste has small containers where water remains accumulated for days. The water-filled containers turn into mosquito-breeding grounds,” said the KMC official.

In New Town, the NKDA, too, noticed vacant plots with garbage dumps. During a similar drive, it received about 300 complaints.

“We have noticed that people running businesses from areas bordering New Town came and dumped the waste here. Maybe there is inadequate waste collection mechanism in place in these areas that is prompting people to dump their waste in New Town,” said an NKDA official.

He said most such complaints came from Action Area II.

Late afternoon

A preliminary assessment of the calls — the complaints were taken between 6am and 6pm — revealed that most came in the afternoon.

Officials interpreted this as a habit among certain residents to not store any waste at home and throw the waste of even half a day on the road.

There are fewer waste cleaners of the KMC deployed in the afternoon because
most street cleaning and waste collection is done in the morning.

“We will have to brainstorm about what solutions we can present. Is there any lapse on our part? Are we not being able to reach every corner? Do we need to give more storage points like bins to ensure that streets are not littered?” asked a KMC official.

He added that the KMC was principally opposed to keeping bins in residential areas as that would deter people from depositing the day’s waste during morning waste collection.

Construction waste

At New Town’s action areas II and III, piles of construction and demolition waste were found dumped on vacant plots.

An NKDA official said a lot of construction activity was still underway in these two action areas and the waste was thrown away here and there.

“We did not find construction and demolition waste in Action Area I because there are few vacant plots remaining there,” said an official.

Complaint status

In Calcutta, the maximum number of complaints — 139 — came from Borough VII that covers areas like Park Street, Maidan, Tangra, Topsia and Tiljala.

Borough X, which covers areas like Taratala, New Alipore, Jodhpur Park, Tollygunge and Jadavpur, was second with 82 complaints.