Sarthak Kanjilal & Avirup Ghosh
Port Blair, July 24: Entire Port Blair city is fast turning into an eyesore owing to indiscriminate dumping of garbage by general public & commercial establishments on the roadsides.
Although in some places the Port Blair Municipal Council has provided permanent as well as fibre Garbage Bins but most of the time people throw garbage all around the garbage bins, which make the situation worse.
People say the indiscriminate dumping of garbage in Port Blair city is hurting the tourism industry, indirectly. People complain that it makes the environment ugly and visiting tourists have expressed concerns in that regard. But sadly the civic sense of general public has also gone missing.
“As people we are hurting the beauty of these tourist favourite Islands. It undermines our ability to portrait these Islands as a tourists’ paradise and our visitors are appalled and amazed at the site of garbage at our street and sea beaches,” said a tour operator based in Andamans.
The garbage dumping situation is also distressing for local residents. Due to some irresponsible citizens others are living under the curse of indiscriminate garbage dumping.
Some of the Islanders are apparently under the impression that road side and other lonely areas are the “proper” place to dispose their garbage, despite of the fact that in many places garbage bins are present.
The stench from these garbage piles is overwhelming for commuters and school children who use city roads daily. Not to mention that the children, especially, could be exposed to airborne diseases from these piles.
Garbage is being dumped indiscriminately almost everywhere in the city and the PBMC is watching the situation as a mute spectator.
The PBMC, which should have been imposing heavy fine for irresponsible garbage dumping, seems to be snoring tight. Even after repeated attempt the Secretary of PBMC was inaccessible.
“We are now sending PBMC workers for door to door garbage collection so that public doesn’t have to look for a garbage bin on their area. In some wards we have already started this. We are also planning to conduct awareness camps in all the wards regarding cleaniness and benefit of using garbage bins for dumpbing garbage,” Mr. K Ganeshan, the Sr. Vice Chairperson of PBMC told Andaman Sheekha today.
Hope such awareness camps will bring some positive changes in Port Blair city.
