Garbage stink irks commuters on Pune-Bengaluru highway

Take the service road or the main road, but the stink of garbage will follow you on both sides of the Pune-Bengaluru highway, where tonnes of garbage has been thrown

Take the service road or the main road, but the stink of garbage will follow you on both sides of the Pune-Bengaluru highway, where tonnes of garbage has been thrown.

HT Image

The stretch, after crossing the Maruti Sutar underpass, till the High Energy Material Research laboratory, is full of garbage.

Residents residing near the highway blame hawkers for dumping vegetables, while the hawkers blame residents of Sutarwadi for throwing the garbage.

“It is not only garbage, but on the service road many people have also dumped construction waste material and sand, which keeps coming on to the road,” said Milind Mokashi, a truck driver who uses the highway.

“We have received few complaints of people burning garbage as well. I have already asked an official to clear the garbage from the highway. It will be cleaned in the next few days,” said Ajit Desmukh from the PMC’s solid waste management department.

“Every day we see the amount of garbage increasing. Dumping is done at night,” said Rohit Mishra who runs a paan shop near the highway.

A resident of Sutarwadi, Shailesh Kelkar, said, “Often, I have seen hawkers throwing vegetables after 7pm and if we argue, then they use foul language with us.”

Fruit hawker Majid Hussain said, “There are only a few hawkers who come to the highway to sell vegetables and we don’t throw any waste on the road. Many vendors use the service road throughout the day and they might throw garbage.”