Auto driver’s protest of sitting amidst garbage catches Kalyan Dombivli civic officials’ attention; gets trash cleared

A 38-year-old auto rickshaw driver’s efforts to keep his locality clean of garbage got noticed after he sat on the pile of trash at Mahatma Phule Chowk in Kalyan (E) for two days in protest; after the auto driver protested by sitting on the garbage dumped on the street, the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation officials took notice of it and cleaned up the area on Monday

A 38-year-old auto rickshaw driver’s efforts to keep his locality clean from garbage got noticed after he sat on the pile of trash at Mahatma Phule Chowk in Kalyan (E) for two days in protest.

Auto rickshaw driver Manoj Waghmare sitting amidst garbage at Mahatma Phule Chowk in Kalyan during his two-day protest over the weekend. His efforts bore fruits as KDMC officials cleared the garbage on Monday. (PRAMOD TAMBE/HT PHOTO)

After Manoj Waghmare, the auto driver protested by sitting on the garbage dumped on the street, the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) officials took notice of it and cleaned up the area on Monday.

Waghmare began his protest on Saturday as he was irked by the fact that despite his several attempts to call the concerned officials and get the garbage cleaned, nobody paid heed.

“I have been following up on this issue for the last few days. I called up the officers but there was no response. The only way to get this noticed was by doing something very dramatic and that is why I decided to sit on the garbage. The civic officials arrived and they cleaned up the area,” said Waghmare.

Waghmare, however, claimed that on Tuesday again the garbage dumped on the street was not cleaned and the civic officials had failed to meet their promises of deploying a garbage van and one person to collect the waste regularly.

“The garbage collection vehicle is not regular in our locality, thus people dump the waste on the road as no one wants to keep it accumulating at home. There is no proper garbage collection system in the locality. The civic body should ensure everyone gives the waste when the vehicle arrives and not dump it on the road,” added Waghmare.

Waghmare has further threatened to crawl and go to the civic headquarters and submit a letter asking suspension of the concerned officers if the garbage collection in his locality is not improved in the coming days. He claimed that his fight would continue till there is a permanent solution to the menace.

Meanwhile, the civic officials blamed the residents for not giving away segregated waste and sometimes also avoiding coming out of their houses and giving away the waste.

“We have cleaned up the area and again people have started dumping there. I have asked the concerned officials to ensure that the waste is collected from every household. They should ensure the sound of the vehicles reaches everyone so that they can come out and dump the waste in the vehicles. Also, as the residents don’t give segregated waste, the van won’t accept it and they then dump the mixed waste late in the night on the road,” said Atul Patil, deputy commissioner, KDMC.

He added,” We will deploy one person to check this and fine those who give waste without segregating and also the person will make sure the waste is collected from all the houses. We have already initiated measures to ensure there is no garbage dumped on the streets.”