AFTER DIWALI, WHO WILL CLEAN THE DIRT AND GARBAGE IN MATHURA VRINDAVAN?

Five days after Diwali municipal workers in Vrindavan, Mathura and Goverdhan are still busy collecting truck loads of garbage and waste from fire crackers piled up just about everywhere in colonies, mohallas, along the road.

 

"People cleaned up their houses before Diwali and carried out repairs but deposited the waste on road-sides. Now who is going to clean up the mess?" asks a resident of Krishna colony Rakesh Singhal.

 

The main bazars are still to be cleaned up. After three days holidays, the karamcharis will return Monday when the cleaning process will start.

All the hard work done by various agencies and local industries in the eco-sensitive Taj Trapezium Zone, extending over 10,000 sq km and home to numerous monumental marvels, to contain environmental pollution now seems wasted and proving counter-productive.

 

This Diwali, municipal authorities have had a tough time collecting garbage and dumping it into landfill sites that are already overflowing. "Most of the dry waste, particularly from fire-crackers, appears to have been burnt at selected points, raising the level of noxious gases to alarming limits. The hazy ambience is choking people and doctors confirm the queues at their clinics of people with breathing problems have been longer this year," notes activist Jagan Nath Poddar of Vrindavan.

 

The dry river bed,  Yamuna's flow reduced to a trickle, is hardly sufficient to dilute pollutants flowing down from upstream industrial clusters.

 

Not just air and water pollution, a new variant "visual pollution"  is hurting esthetic sensibilities.  The filthy stink and the callously littered garbage are ugly eyesores for pilgrims and tourists.

 

Despite the much hyped ho and halla of prime minister's cleanliness drive, the whole Braj region seems to be sinking into a civilisational sink.

 

"Leave the cantonment area, move around the city and you will have real 'darshan' of hell. The colonies and the mohallas are neck deep in human waste. The sewer lines are choked, the open drains are filled with waste.

 

Thanks to Supreme Court intervention, the industrial pollution has come down, as manufacturing units have switched over to natural gas. But Mathura's problem is from the numerous silver plating units, and the saree dying units that use a lot of water and release toxic wastes which directly reach the river.

 

Cleanliness is a major issue in all the religious centres around Mathura. Goverdhan is facing a big problem cleaning up both the Mansi Ganga and the parikrama route after lakhs of pilgrims who came for Diwali left the town yesterday. "The big problem is what to do with the waste collected and where to dump the garbage," said a panda at Daan Ghati, Deen Dayal Sharma.

An official report says  "there is no segregation of solid waste at source. The city does not have garbage bins and often the garbage is thrown on the roadside. Only two dumper placers are available with the NPP, and the waste is being transported in open dumper placers. The  disposal of the garbage is being done in unscientific way, as the single disposal site is around 7 kms away from the city. With around 485 permanent sweepers and 265 contractual sweepers, the NPP, Mathura is still unable to  provide satisfactory services."

 

Solid waste management alongwith drainage is the most poorly delivered service. The city produces around 200 MT waste daily. Due to lack of infrastructure and manpower only half the garbage can be transported to open dumping sites on the outskirts of the city which has more than 200 dairies and 50 odd nursing homes.

 

The sad part is that the Mathura Nagar Palika Parishad  and the Mathura Vrindavan Development Authority are not seriously interested in addressing this problem on a priority.