Malkangiri stinks over waste mismanagement in Odisha

MALKANGIRI: Visitors to Malkangiri town are greeted by an unbearable stench emanating from the heaps of garbage dumped beside Malkangiri-Balimela major district road. 

Owing to the unavailability of land for the dumping of waste and the shortage of treatment plants, the municipality workers are not lifting waste from across the town daily. Garbage overflowing from dustbins provides an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes.

Locals said if waste management in the town is not streamlined soon, it may lead to rising cases of dengue, malaria and other diseases. 

Around 40,000 people from 11,000 households reside within Malkangiri municipality jurisdiction. Around 10.57-tonne garbage is generated in the town daily of which only 5.6 tonnes of domestic waste is segregated and treated at the sole treatment plant of four tonne capacity at Mundaguda.

Around 50 per cent of the commercial waste that remains untreated and unsegregated, is dumped in the open at the town’s entrance, said sources in the civic body. 

However, Malkangiri municipality sanitation expert Lingaraj Palo blamed the administration for the situation. In the absence of a dumping site, garbage is being dumped temporarily on the outskirts of the town. Palo said he and the municipality office had raised the issue on several occasions before the Collector in the last four years but in vain. 

Of the 114 urban local bodies in the State, Malkangiri is the only municipality which has no dumping yard. Palo said a dumping yard has been identified by the civic body in Ward no 16 and if everything goes as per plan, waste will be dumped at the site after 15 days.