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If you notice your surroundings getting dirtier by the day, it’s probably because the garbage collector in charge of clearing waste there has been removed from service.
The number of garbage collectors has been slashed across wards and those still on the job say they aren’t getting paid regularly. The demotivated employees aren’t working diligently and the township is bearing the brunt.
“The garbage collectors are not coming regularly,” said Roshni Chakraborty, a resident of AB Block. “With the monsoon on, garbage is flowing everywhere and the streets are stinking. We have not yet lodged a complaint with the civic body but have notified the block association.”
Complaints are pouring in from IA, IB, HA, EE, AE and AD blocks that mounds of garbage are lying unattended all through the day.
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Raising a stink
Residents of BL Block said their garbage cleaners were asking for money to do their work. “The chaps asked me for Rs 100 a day to collect my waste! Why should I pay a bribe for a basic civic service? Is this what we get after turning the municipality into a corporation?” asked Ranjan Sen Sharma, a BL Block resident.
A resident of FC Block alleged that the local councillor had demanded Rs 20 a day to ensure the space in front of her home was cleaned. “It’s ridiculous!” said the resident, asking not to be named. “And when I asked the councillor if the money was payable at the corporation building, she lost her cool and said I could do whatever I wanted.”
Asked about the garbage pile-up, councillor Nilanjana Manna said her hands were tied. “It’s not my fault. When I assumed office after the October 2015 elections there were 56 workers in my ward assigned to collect garbage, sweep the streets etc. Now I have only 26 workers and four or five of them are absent on any given day. How can the ward be cleaned like this?” she said.
Manna is councillor of Ward 33, comprising FC, FD, FE, FF, FB, GB, GC and part of HA blocks. “I have already sent a letter to the corporation’s conservancy department, asking for more workers,” she said.
Anita Mondal, councillor or Ward 30 comprising Digantika, AH, BH, BG, CG, DG, AF, AG, Baisakhi and part of SA blocks, claims her ward is cleaner than before. “If there is garbage on the streets, it is residents who are to blame. Garbage collectors go door to door from 6am and then from noon. But I know of residents who don’t bother handing their refuse to them and instead dump it outside later on. Besides, the number of garbage workers has reduced from 43 in my ward to 30 now. How can we keep the place clean?”
There are complaints of grass growing wild too. “The grass in HA Park is three feet tall! No one bothers to trim it. We’re forced to take our children to GD Park to play as this one is unusable,” said a resident of HA Block.
On paper, grass cutting is under the parks and gardens department but the workers cutting grass are those who collect garbage.
“It’s no use working hard,” said a garbage man who works in Sector I. “We get nothing in return. We are underpaid. Even that meagre salary we are never paid before the 10th or 15th of the month. Our working conditions are terrible. We have to deal with unhygienic waste but don’t even have gloves. We have to walk over the dumping yard in Mollar Bheri that has dangerous items like glass shards but we don’t have gum boots.”
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Blame game
Devasish Jana, the mayoral council member-in-charge of conservancy and solid waste management, says he hasn’t got any complaints about garbage lining the streets of Salt Lake. “Let someone complain and we will take action,” he said, adding that there are 1,250 workers in the department across the corporation now.
He could not explain why the corporation workers have been demanding extra money from the residents. “They are all contractual employees of the corporation. We cannot vouch for them,” he said.
While Jana does not disclose why workers have been laid off, Manna said she had information that many workers on the Rajarhat Gopalpur Municipality rolls were fictitious. “Jana has told me that there were workers who did not exist in reality but who were drawing salary. This is why the department was trimmed.”
The township has recently got compactor machines to compress garbage and reduce its volume and will start segregating its waste by the Pujas. Manna says the problems being faced now are because of the transition. “With the system shifting from man to machine, some teething trouble is bound to be there. Soon everything will fall into place,” she said.
But residents are sceptical. “I doubt how much they’ll succeed in segregating waste if they are failing to do something as simple as removing waste,” said a resident of HA Block.
