GARBAGE AT every corner, damaged roads, non-functional streetlights, and encroachment on footpaths and roads. This is Kanpur for you.
The Kanpur Municipal Corporation, responsible for maintaining the civic infrastructure of the city, has given up any hope of improvement due to lack of funds. The city has “progressed” to be one of the most polluted cities in this part of the world. Though with the recommendation of a new master plan, the city is all set to increase its area, there is little hope on the civic infrastructure front. Not only do the municipal authorities lack funds to carry out development activities, they also don’t have the manpower required for the same. This despite getting crores of rupees in grant from the Centre and the State government.
Nagar Swasthya Adhikari, Jwala Prasad Gupta said, “We clean the city to the best of our capacity. According to the health manual, presently nearly 40 lakh people are living in the city and we require more than 10,000 safai workers in comparison to the present strength of 2850. Also, many of them are in the services of the city VVIPs.”
Another problem, according to Gupta, was that there were only 14 health inspectors against the requirement of nearly 100. “I don’t have any zonal health officer posted under me and I am the only doctor posted in the health department of municipality. I have to run and attend every complaint in all the six zones,” he said. Cities like Lucknow had more than 4500 safai workers and six zonal health officers, whereas Kanpur lacked such manpower and that was reflected in the poor civic conditions of the city, Gupta added.
Defending his staff he said, “Given the limited number of staff that is working without salaries for months, we lift nearly 800 tons of garbage every day.”
{{/usCountry}}Defending his staff he said, “Given the limited number of staff that is working without salaries for months, we lift nearly 800 tons of garbage every day.”
{{/usCountry}}Mayor Ravindra Patni said he had a vision for the development of the city, but due to lack of funds and non-payment of salaries to the employees, he had not started compelling others to put in more efforts to clean the city.
“I have promised better street lights, sanitation, roads, and water supply to the residents, but in a situation when the State government has held back crores of rupees from the KMC fund and the high court has restricted the payment of salaries to KMC employees, how can one think of starting new projects,” said Patni.
He further said that despite all this, he had directed the officials to improve the civic infrastructure wherever possible and things were looking better now.