Panchkula residents raise a stink about new garbage trucks

Irked by the garbage trucks’ irregular service, several citizens in Panchkula are even paying additionally to door-to-door collectors

Over six months after the responsibility for city’s garbage collection shifted hands from older door-to-door collectors to a private company back in April, the municipal corporation has seemingly failed to streamline the service.

Panchkula residents complain that the garbage trucks are irregular and often do not show up at their doorstep at all. (HT File Photo)

Aimed at making the city dustbin free, as many as 99 garbage pick-up trucks had been pressed into service in the city to collect segregated waste — with the exception of Sectors 23, 24, 27 and 29, which fall under the Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran.

As per the Haryana Municipal Corporation Act, 1994, the monthly charges vary from ₹5 to ₹100 depending upon the residential area. For commercial properties and educational institutes, the charges range between ₹25 to ₹1,000 and ₹150 to ₹2,000. Dharamshalas, religious places and sports clubs have been exempted. The charges, under the new system, are added directly to the property tax.

But city residents are hardly impressed with the services being offered. Their common grouse: Irregular timings and collection trucks often not showing up at their doorstep at all. And with the door-to-door collectors still in play, several residents, some even inadvertently, have been paying double the fee.

Aarti Bansal, a resident of Sector 12, who leaves for work by 9.30 am, still pays additional ₹150 per month to the old garbage collectors.

“The old garbage collectors come on time and never skip. As far as the MC workers are concerned, I have never seen them in the lane before 9.30 am. So, for me, the old system is more convenient,” she said.

SK Nayar, president of the citizens welfare association who also pays double the amount, criticised the lack of a fixed timing of the trucks, saying, “Firstly, you do not know when the truck is coming. Then they do not stop or wait for you. By the time one comes out with garbage, they are gone.” “It’s better to pay double, than to have rotting garbage pile up in your house,” he added.

But some like Gianwati, a 64-year-old homemaker from Sector 16, have unwarily continued to pay the old garbage collectors. She said hardly 10% of the people she knew were handing out garbage to the new collectors, adding, “They don’t come on Sunday, are irregular, their loudspeaker is defunct, so even if they are outside, we don’t get to know.”

Speaking of the lukewarm response to the new system, municipal commissioner Virender Lather said, “We can only motivate people to come forward and support the MC’s initiative of collecting segregated waste. I haven’t received any complaints regarding their functioning. If any citizen will give us a complaint in writing, we will deal with it on priority.”