Rs 40 cr dustbin scheme junked in Dharamsala

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, August 23

The underground dustbin scheme that was launched in Dharamsala with much fanfare in 2017 has been junked. When the scheme was launched, the government had claimed that Dharamsala had become the first Smart City in the country to have underground dustbins.

121 dustbins already removed

• About Rs 40 crore was spent on the scheme by the Dharamsala MC.
• The Dharamsala MC has already uprooted 121 underground dustbins installed in various parts of the city and is in the process of uprooting the rest.
• As per the scheme introduced, underground dustbins were to have technology imported from Holland.
• It was claimed that dustbins would have sensors through which the authorities would come to know about the filling status of dustbins on their mobile phones.
• However, sources revealed that the technology was never supplied by the suppliers.

About Rs 40 crore were spent on the scheme under the Smart City project by the Dharamsala MC. Now all the money spent on the scheme has gone down the drain. The Dharamsala MC has already uprooted 121 underground dustbins in various parts of the city and is in the process of removing the rest.

The uprooted 121 underground dustbins have been junked at the solid waste disposal site on Chari road in Dharamsala. With their removal, no dustbins have been left in many areas of the city. Shashi Sharma, a resident of Dharamsala, said the city receives a large number of tourists. Now that the dustbins are gone there was hardly any place left for the tourists to dispose of trash. In such cases the people would be left with no option but to throw trash in the open.

Commissioner of the Dharamsala MC Zaffar Iqbal, when asked, said the underground dustbin scheme in the city has been junked as the new Swachh Bharat policy of the Government of India was meant to make cities dustbin free. “The underground dustbins in Dharamsala had become trash points. Since we have introduced door-to-door collection of garbage in the entire city, it was decided to dispose of the underground dustbins,” he said.

When asked where tourists will dump trash, he said that a proposal was being mooted to put up small concealed dustbins in places that are frequented by tourists. These dustbins can be used by the tourists to dump trash. These would also be aesthetically placed, he said.

When underground dustbins were installed in Dharamsala in the year 2017, it was claimed that the city would be the first in India to have sensor-based waste dumping facility.

As per the scheme introduced, underground dustbins were to have technology imported from Holland. It was claimed that dustbins would have sensors through which the authorities would come to know about their filling status on their mobile phones. This would have helped them clear the dustbins in a time-bound manner. However, sources revealed that the technology was never supplied by the suppliers.