The Times of India - Kolkata

Garbage mess sparks traffic jam

Subhro Niyogi & Saikat Ray, TNN 12 August 2009, 06:13am IST

KOLKATA: For Gariahat resident Rajendra Bose, Ballygunge Circular Road is the most convenient route to his Dalhousie office. But so frequently does he face a traffic snarl near the Automobile Association of Eastern India (AAEI) office around the time he is heading for office that he takes a detour through Gurusaday Road.

CIT Road resident Jayanta Pal faces the same problem negotiating Beliaghata Road on way to Esplanade. Frustrated, he now does a long detour through Narkeldanga Road. Others who have to pass Paikpara in north and Maharshi Debendra Road in central Kolkata face a similar trauma.

What makes these bottlenecks particularly irritating is that they are entirely avoidable. The snarls at most of these points are caused not by traffic density or inadequate policing but because of sheer lack of planning in garbage clearance by the conservancy department at Kolkata Municipal Corporation. Operations by KMC payloaders and trucks at open vats on BC Road, Beliagahata Road, Paikpara and Maharshi Debendra Road during peak office hours make commuting a hell.

"I don't understand why KMC has to clear garbage when everyone's headed for office. BC Road is one of the key arteries linking south Kolkata to the central business district. It is smooth travel till one reaches the Ballygunge Military Camp. Then, the traffic grinds to a halt as the road is intermittently blocked by pay-loaders reversing and moving forward to pick mounds of rubbish and loading them into trucks. In no other city will you find garbage collection at such odd hours," fumed Bose.

Pal has a similar experience when he reaches the Sales Tax Office. "It's actually a shame that we have open vats where rubbish is littered. And to clear them during office hours is criminal. Why can't the KMC have closed garbage containers that can be lifted on to trucks in the early morning hours?" he wonders.

The constables posted at the points, too, are at their wit's end. "The traffic management is smooth till the KMC vehicles land up. Then traffic has to be stopped for the payloaders to operate. It takes half an hour to clean this vat. By the time the vehicles are gone, the entire traffic situation is in a mess that takes another half an hour to clear up," said the constable near the vat opposite the AAEI.

Kolkata Police special additional commissioner (traffic) Ranveer Kumar said he had taken the matter up with KMC but the latter had expressed its inability to remedy the situation. "We wish the garbage clearance was over before heavy traffic begins around 9.15 am. But we cannot restrict the conservancy department operations as it is an essential service. Efforts are on to at least regulate garbage clearance vehicles that flout one-way norms," he said.

Conservancy staff say the problem is due to the inadequate number of payloaders at KMC. Each payloader has to do the rounds of seven-eight vats every morning. Around 30 minutes are spent at each, with another 20-30 minutes of travel time to the next. They finish only around 1 pm after starting around 7.30 am.

Why shouldn't they be carried out in two shifts one from 5 am to 9 am and the other from 12 pm to 4 pm? No one really has an answer. In fact, the primitive practice that one still witnesses in Kolkata is not carried out in most modern cities. Civic authorities here, too, were asked to modernize garbage disposal. Under Kolkata Environment Improvement Project, funded by the Asian Development Bank, containers were to be placed where open vats exit.

"We had plans to use containers to prevent spilling of garbage. This would also have ensured quick retrieval and minimal inconvenience to traffic. But the plan lies buried somewhere," a senior KMC conservancy department official said. There are 650 vats in the city and only 150 containers at present. Currently, around 250 trucks collect 3250 tonne garbage from 141 wards in the city every morning.

The Times of India - Delhi 12.08.2009

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