Manikonda municipality stares at plague of issues

HYDERABAD: The residents of the newly-formed Manikonda municipality claim that they are reeling under several civic issues which include insufficient water supply to various localities, poor drainage and lack of garbage collectors.

The residents claim that the piling garbage in their area causing a severe sanitation hazard, and a dog menace. According to officials, of the 22,000 households under the municipality, only 13,200 have door-to-door garbage collectors. Part of the problem is due to the understaffed workforce, as each municipality has only nine staff members for every three segments.

Residents allege that due to the insufficient garbage collectors, many among them dump the garbage on the roads.“Heaps of garbage can be seen piling up on the roads for the last several months. Despite repeated complaints, no action has been taken,” lamented a resident Jasmine Sing.

Other residents added that this has become a nexus among the private and government garbage collectors. “There is no clear demarcation on who is collecting garbage and where? The government parties do not enter into the area where private players come and the private parties dump the garbage in open plots,” said Manoj Kumar, residents welfare association (RWA) general secretary from Alkaapoor township.Meanwhile, the officials claim that they are focusing on the issue. “We are urgently working on the issue of sanitation. Presently 60% households are getting garbage collectors. We are striving to achieve a 100% coverage by getting 10 e-autos and tractors and JCB’s to expedite the process,” said N Shanker, Municipality Commissioner.

Talking about the insufficient water supply, he added, “We have also written a letter to the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) to provide water supply to 13 new identified locations.”