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Garbage-free streets still a distant dream for Guwahati

By CITY CORRESPONDENT

GUWAHATI, March 4 - Garbage-free streets are still a distant dream for residents of Guwahati, as the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) is struggling to handle the waste due to its limited solid waste management equipment.

A source in the GMC said that dustbins overflow with garbage because of non-clearance in time due to the municipal body�s limited vehicles for unloading the garbage from bins.

�GMC needs around 45 vehicles for lifting and unloading the garbage from garbage bins and containers but it has only 15 vehicles, due to which it fails to collect garbage from many pockets of the city. With the limited number of vehicles it becomes tough for GMC to transfer the garbage to the transfer station or to landfill on time,� the source added.

GMC Commissioner Debeswar Malakar told The Assam Tribune that the corporation would soon have vehicles to manage garbage in the city. �The corporation will get three compactor vehicles this month. Proposals have also been submitted to the government for more vehicles. However, this will not meet the requirement, so GMC will focus more on setting up transfer stations in the city,� Malakar added.

Altogether 130 garbage disposal bins are functional in the city after the GMC removed several bins from the city streets. Altogether 500 tonnes of waste are generated in the city daily.

�The garbage bins get overloaded and the waste spills over to the road. People pass by the bins covering their faces either with their hands or with cloths. GMC is not serious about collection of garbage from these city bins. We have witnessed that people throw garbage on the roadside due to the overloaded bins which stink,� Kamal Kumar Sarma, a resident of Silpukhuri, said.

�The corporation is not regular in collection of garbage generated in our locality,� Paran Saikia, a shopkeeper of Athgaon said.

The GMC has taken several measures to make the city clean � from introducing auto tippers to deploying flying squads to dispose waste. However, these steps have failed to pay off as most of the bins mostly remain full to the brim. The GMC had also launched door-to-door awareness drive for waste management in the city.

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