It is difficult to walk through MG Road, Biplabi Haren Ghosh Road, Nityadhan Mukherjee Road and Church Road on Tuesday evenings and Wednesday mornings without covering the face. Thanks to the  stench from the piling garbage and overflowing drains walking through these roads is unbearable. Mangalar Haat, held every Monday and Tuesday, helps turn these public roads into vats unusable till Wednesday when civic staff finds time to clear the garbage. 

More than 2,000 garment sellers not only encroach a part of the roads on the first two days of the week but they also turn the entire area into an open-air toilet. The area where Mangalar Haat is held is the administrative hub of Howrah, where a large number of offices like the District Magistrate’s Office, the Howrah Court, the Howrah Municipal Corporation (HMC), the Howrah Zilla Parishad, office of the Road Transport Authority, office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMOH) are located. Hundreds of employees and thousands of people visit these offices everyday. They have to endure this stench from garbage and drains nearby. Most try to avoid visiting this area on Mondays and Tuesdays. 

“The garment sellers leave the area like a  hell hole in the evening. They turn the drains into toilets and dump plastic, shells of green coconuts, rotten fruits and other things in them. Most of the drains remain choked for at least 48 hours. Everyone feels nauseous while walking through the area,” said Sambhu Das, an ex-employee of the CMOH office. He alleged that there was a covered vat on Nityadhan Mukherjee Road but the ostagars (those who make garments) prefer to dump their garbage on the road. 

“Garbage is strewn all over the road and around the vat. It is not enough that they encroach the roads, they also turn them into a public urinal,” said Das. A large number of food and fruit vendors ply their trade at Mangalar Haat, catering to the traders. The paper and plastic containers in which food is served are dumped on the drains. 
“I cannot walk to Biplabi Haren Ghosh Road from Nityadhan Mukherjee Road to dump the saal pata in which I am served kachuri. I have no time for that. So naturally I dump them in the nearby drain,” said an ostagor who did not want to be named. 

He also didn’t find anything wrong in turning the drains to toilets. “Traders doing business on Nityadhan Mukherjee Road don’t have time to walk to Biplabi Haren Ghosh Road to use the pay-and-use toilets there. So they use the drains as toilets. The only pay-and-use toilets are located at Biplabi Haren Ghosh Road. We need more pay-and-use toilets in other roads also,” said another ostagor. The administration has to build public amenities on the roads if they are to keep them a little clean.