SILCHAR, Sept 28 - Even as the Cachar district administration has urged the puja committees to celebrate the festival of Durga Puja as �Green Puja� avoiding the use of plastics and other pollutants, the improper dumping of garbage across Silchar is haunting the revellers during the festival.
Amid the cacophony and dazzling lights, devotees are facing tough times to hop around the puja pandals because of the stinking foul smell emanating from the piled-up trash.
�It is certainly an unpleasant sight during festivals such as Durga Puja to see garbage littered across the city. Together with the fickle good habits of people of not throwing the wastes out of their homes, the door-to-door collection of the disposed garbage has certainly lost its intensity,� quipped Bireshwar Das, a school teacher.
However, NN Tagore, chairperson of Silchar Municipal Board, has claimed that there is no lapse in the collection of garbage dumped at various points in the city and the efforts are being maintained during the festive days as well. �The routine collection of garbage will continue even during Durga Puja,� Tagore said.
Interestingly, Dr Rajib Biswas, general secretary of Society for Pathology, a local NGO engaged in the door-to-door garbage collection, has alleged non-cooperation from the civic body regarding dumping of the accumulated wastes in the designated trenching ground at Meherpur. �We had been chosen and approved by the Cachar district administration and the Silchar Municipal Board for the collection of garbage from municipal wards 13 to 20 (barring ward number-19). Following the necessary paper works we began our task of garbage collection and covered 2,594 households (commercial and domestic inclusive) from the respective wards in July this year generating a revenue of Rs 1,28,450 lakh taking collection charges of Rs 50 from residential households and Rs 100 from the commercial establishments. But following an unfortunate incident inside the trenching ground when a truck of the civic board crushed one of our tricycles in August, the civic board is maintaining an unpleasant attitude barring us to deposit garbage collected from the GP areas inside the trenching ground,� said Dr Biswas. He added to inform that they are facing difficulties in dumping the wastes as well.
