Amritsar residents flay MC, govt officials for insanitary conditions in city
Ahead of the festival of lights, the Amritsar Municipal Corporation has launched a sanitation drive and started lifting garbage from various spots in the city. Residents had been complaining about heaps of garbage and demanding cleaned surroundings in the run-up to the festival season. They criticized the civic body officials for insanitary conditions in the city.
Anil Vinayak, a resident of Basant Avenue, said, “Successive heads of the Amritsar MC are also responsible for the present messy state of affairs as they buckle under the pressure from the corporation union bodies and fail to implement even their official orders such as night cleaning duties for fear of strikes and unrest. Officials need to be strict and discharge duties without fear for which they have been adequately vested with legal and financial powers. But frequent transfers had taken a toll on governance and affected officials’ morals for taking uptight decisions.”
Kulwant Singh Ankhi, a resident of Partap Nagar, said, “Residents of the holy city are contributing a lot by paying property tax, water and sewerage, house-wise monthly charges to Amritsar MSW Limited, besides Central GST and State GST and other taxes. They pay taxes to avail of facilities like cleanliness, garbage disposal, proper potable water supply and sewerage disposal. But when garbage is not lifted on a daily basis from houses, sewage mixed water is supplied to many houses in the city, big heaps of legacy waste remain present on roadsides, green belts and parks in a deplorable state, aware residents are forced to think where the people’s money is being spent.”
“Amritsar is placed in the list of Smart cities since 2016 and hundreds of crores of rupees has been received by the Smart City Project authorities, but not a single area of the city can be awarded the status of Smart. It seems that politicians consider the residents of the city as only voters and not the honourable citizens who deserve the quality of life,” added Ankhi.
“Residents may witness cleanliness, garbage disposal and proper potable water supply and sewerage only if a central level agency audits the funds received by the Smart City project authorities. Amritsar is also devoid of the MC Mayor and councillors, and they do not know the person who they can apprise of their problems relating to cleanliness, garbage disposal and proper potable water supply and sewerage disposal. The duration of the MC Commissioner is only for up to 4-5 months. When he/she becomes familiar with the problems, he is transferred, leaving the residents in a lurch,” he added.
