The Hindu 27.10.2010
Garbage to be cleared twice a day in Shimoga
Special Correspondent
| Officials blame absenteeism among workers for waste piling up |
Verbal duel:Councillors discussing cleanliness issue in Shimoga on Tuesday.
SHIMOGA: Shimoga City Municipal Council (CMC) here on Tuesday decided to take up cleaning of the streets and clearing of the garbage twice a day. This was in response to the unanimous demand of the councillors from all the parties at the council meeting.
K.B. Prasannakumar (Congress) drew the attention of the House to the problem of piling up of garbage and the stray pigs, which had become a menace.
He said although the garbage bins were overflowing, they were not cleared. “The problem of hygiene has become so acute that the councillors are reluctant to face the citizens,” he said.
CMC president K.S. Gangadharappa said it was regrettable that the problem had persisted despite his best efforts in extracting work from the staff concerned.
Engineer Manukumar said that there were 1,000-km long drains, 800-km roads and 74-km long conservancies in the city and for the cleaning 180 regular workers and 78 workers hired by various agencies were being engaged. The regular work gets hampered as 10 per cent of these workers abstained from work daily, he said.
Councillor Ramu pointed out that the cleanliness work was being taken up by many municipal bodies in the State twice a day while it was not being done even once in Shimoga. . The former CMC president M. Shankar said the cleanliness be taken twice daily immediately and it was the responsibility of the administration to extract work from the workers who were reluctant to do their work.
Several Congress members led by H.C. Yogish rushed to the dais to protest against the irregularity in holding the meetings to take stock of the havoc caused by the rains recently.
They took exception to the survey conducted on the extent of damage caused by the rains without bringing it to the notice of the councillors concerned.
