Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, Jul 28: The Itanagar capital region (ICR) has been facing a slowdown in garbage collection for several days now, leading to accumulation of heaps of garbage beside the roads in various sectors and colonies.
The residents of some sectors and colonies said that the garbage trucks engaged by the Itanagar Municipal Corporation (IMC) have not been lifting garbage regularly for several days now.
Speaking to this daily on Monday, IMC CEO (Technical) Tadar Tadang informed that garbage lifting and disposal have been badly affected due to the ongoing lockdown as many of the garbage disposal trucks are currently out of service.
“These trucks break down every next day and need repair, but all the workshops are closed ever since the number of Covid-19 positive cases started rising in the ICR. Now only a few vehicles are engaged in garbage disposal duty,” Tadang said.
According to the CEO, the IMC has a total of 42 vehicles, of which only 6 to 7 trucks each in Itanagar and Naharlagun are currently in service.
“These few vehicles have to take care of a total of 30 wards, which is not an easy task. As of now, of the total 18 wards in Itanagar, six are facing serious issues as the garbage trucks assigned to these areas are out of order,” he informed.
The CEO, however, said he has recently constituted a rapid response team for garbage collection.
“Any resident of any sector or colony can inform the IMC, and our staffs will reach there and collect the garbage. I have been trying to implement this service for 11 days now. The rapid response team will collect garbage from every sector and colony after finishing its normal duties at designated sectors and routes,” he said, and appealed to the residents of the ICR to cooperate with the IMC.
“I request the people to maintain the timing of throwing their garbage for the trucks to collect it. We have asked the people to leave their garbage at the primary or secondary lifting points of their respective sector and colony before 7 am, so that it can be collected by the garbage trucks on time. If the people don’t maintain the timing, there will surely be accumulation of garbage everywhere,” Tadang said.
He also informed that the IMC is currently overburdened with sanitization activities.
“The IMC has been engaged in sanitization work since the beginning of the first lockdown. IMC workers are the ones carrying out sanitization of the quarantine centres, the Covid care centres, hospitals and market areas during the lockdown.
“Apart from that, the IMC has also taken up sanitization work at all the rapid antigen testing centres within the ICR. Not only do the IMC workers collect garbage from these centres, they are also entrusted with the task of transferring volunteers and medical staffs from one centre to another,” the CEO said.
He gave assurance that the garbage lifting services would improve once the lockdown period is over.
