Games’ garbage woes: 20,000 kg in eight hours

Monday morning blues acquired a new meaning for Municipal Corporation of Delhi's (MCD) sanitation workers.

Monday morning blues acquired a new meaning for Municipal Corporation of Delhi's (MCD) sanitation workers. As many as 300 sanitation workers, deployed at the Jawaharlal Nehru (JLN) stadium — the venue of the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony — ended up clearing 20,000 kg of garbage.

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You read right. Delhiites generated a staggering 20,000 kg of garbage, in a matter of eight hours.

And it took MCD's sanitation workers the entire day to clean up the mess left by 60,000 spectators of the opening ceremony of the Games on Sunday.

“The 500-odd bins that were placed all over the opening ceremony venue were of no use, as people littered the stadium. We had to first pick up all the water and soft drink bottles and then clean up the area,” said a senior MCD official.

The sanitation workers started work early in the morning and continued till late into the night. “We first cleared the stadium and the lawn areas. After the stage was dismantled, we cleaned up the remaining area,” added the official.
The cleaning work had to be suspended briefly for five hours, when the stage was being removed.

The closing ceremony of the Games will also be held at the JLN stadium on October 14.

Recently, the MCD and the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) were deputed to look after sanitation-related work in the 11 Games venues, after private companies failed to do so satisfactorily.

Earlier, the sanitation work had been awarded to three private companies by the Games Organising Committee.