Festive waste raises stink as 4,ooo LMC staff on leave

LUCKNOW: With around 4,000 sanitary workers on leave for Holi, piles of stinking garbage troubled citizens across the city on Friday. An estimated 900 metric tonne garbage got collected on the roadsides and in bins in the past three days.

The situation was also aggravated with no door-to-door garbage collection done during Holi.

According to official estimate, sanitary workers collect around 640 metric tonne waste from roadside and garbage bins out of 1,600 metric tonne of waste generated in the city daily.

With 4,000 of 10,000 sanitary workers on Holi leave, around 300 metric tonne of waste remains uncollected daily.

In Niralanagar, a huge pile of garbage made the roads messy. Rashmi Shukla said, "It's a shame that Lucknow Municipal Corporation cannot maintain cleanliness even in festivals. It was embarrassing to invite friends to my home due to unbearable stink of garbage."

Similar complaints were made by Alambagh residents as heaps of garbage remained on the roads. Anoop Sonker said, "I will hire private sanitary workers to clean the mess."

Garbage was spilling out of bins in Aashiana. Himanshu Awasthi, a resident, said, "We swept the roads, collected garbage from streets and dumped the waste in the bins before Holi as sanitary staff did not turn up."

With most of the workers of door-to-door garbage collection company on leave, residents were forced to throw the household waste in the open. Ananya Sinha, a resident of Niralanagar, said, "We had a family get-together on Holi. The bins in my house were full of trash. I had no option but to throw the garbage on road."

Mayor Sanyukta Bhatia said, "We cannot deny leaves to sanitary workers. However, we are planning to form a team of sanitary workers who will ensure cleanliness in the city during festivals."