Cleanliness in our colony is becoming an ever-increasing area of concern for residents all across DLF 2.
Garbage collection done by the cart-pullers every morning has been the norm for decades now in our colony. The official structure requires the residents not to pay anything to the garbage collectors, as they are supposed to get their wages from the MCG office. The usual practice, though, seems that they are getting paid by the residents regularly. As residents narrate, the charge ranges from Rs. 100 to 500 per month from every floor or every house, escalating from the ground up to the resident floor level. The minimum is paid by someone on ground floor and the maximum by the 3rd or 4th-floor resident. An additional charge is even taken to pick coconut shells or baby/adult diapers.
A resident of L block, Amit, asked “What are the official charges, so that everyone is on the same page and doesn’t pay random excessive charges? Some houses are paying big amounts without actual cost knowledge and then they ask extra from other houses. It would be useful for all residents to know.”
MCG team does not outrightly discourage the practice and just says “residents ne bigada hai in sab collectors ko”. Though nothing official is given, some source says they can charge 100 rs per month per floor per house depending on the quantity of garbage.
We also see some residents not paying the koorewala a specific amount but just giving bakshish on a regular basis for this deed. In the same spirit, a good samaritan also went on to raise funds for monetary support for the garbage man who had to go out of work as his son was taken seriously ill.
Another aspect that has been bothering residents is the ever-increasing piles of garbage dumped in the empty plots. Lots of garbage had piled up at the roadsides and empty plots after Diwali as the garbage littered in the open and MCG road cleaning staff was on strike for over 2 weeks.
Frequently done by many, be it the residents, visitors or their house helps, the dumping of house garbage in an empty space is a constant problem. A resident in L4 and another in L6, found someone having dumped household garbage in front of their house.
A civic responsibility and neighbourly spirit must prevail among us all not to dump our waste outside our homes. The unhygienic environment will not only breed pests and diseases but also spread air pollution in the neighbourhod.
The waste must be handed over, responsibly, segregated, to the garbage collectors, or else kept in a bin inside the gates, till it gets collected the next morning.
