Chandigarh: The residents of Sector 20-A have somehow taken an electricity pillar carrying high-tension wire to be a waste bin. Pedestrians can't pass by this fly-infested four-pillar spot on a bicycle track along the Sector 20-21 dividing road.
The spot is opposite to main entrance of the sector. Dumping their waste here is morning and evening ritual for many residents. Sanitation workers and road sweepers have caught people discarding plastic bags full of garbage at this place. "In the evenings, women of the houses behind this wall come out to litter. We are sick of forbidding them but they don't seem to understand," said a sanitation worker. "Many families empty their waste baskets here several times a day, leaving us a new pile of garbage to scoop every few hours. Are we supposed keep cleaning the same spot over and over?"
The practice of tossing garbage over the wall has not only turned the place into a dump yard but also gathered a mess inside a park on its other side. Heaps of garbage, food residue, and rotting peels litter its surface. A few domestic helps walking by claimed that their employers told them to toss the garbage there. A maid said: "The lady of the house of my master asked me to do it. The garbage collector leaves an additional bagful behind our house, so we have no option."
Confronted, most of the neighbours either refused to comment on the issue or denied culpability. "How do we know who does it?" said the owner of a house. "Maybe, you should ask the people from the other side of the street. We don't throw garbage in the open like that." The garbage includes all kinds of plastic wrappers, which raises a question of civic accountability of literate members of society.
