Indian Express 19.12.2009
Turning blind eye to filth in Sursagar, VMC gears up for boating facility
Planning to gift the Barodians boating facilities in Sursagar Lake in the new year, the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) has turned a blind eye to the basic issue of cleanliness.
At present, the officials of the Filaria department functioning under the health department of the civic body are responsible for cleaning the Sursagar Lake besides other ponds in the city.
The odd arrangement made years ago still continues and the workers are forced to do remove filth with bare hands. The refuse here collects from domestic sewerage lines plugged into the inlets of the lake.
“It is true the staff of the Filaria department is responsible for cleaning the ponds in the city including Sursagar but this arrangement is there for long for unknown reasons. I would put up the file in this regard so that the cleaning part is handled by the concerned department,” VMC Deputy Commissioner A O Sharma told The Indian Express.
The staff members who clean the Sursagar lake every day said the boating facility would fail if the basic issue of cleanliness is not given proper attention.
“The drainage connections are joined illegally to the inlet of the lake which is for the rainwater. This is known to all the senior officials but nobody is really bothered about it. We are responsible for cleaning up the lake but we are not given any facilities and what we do is not less than the manual scavenging,” said one of the persons involved in cleaning job at Sursagar.
While the outlets are kept to check the overflow, the inlets are designed in a way that whenever the ponds in the city overflow, the water gets into Sursagar Lake.
“Nobody really knows the importance of the system. Forget about the inlets, the ponds itself are getting destroyed because of haphazard construction,” said a senior official in the engineering department.
