Used plastic bags, plates, trays and glasses allegedly dumped in manholes and gully pits by a section of hawkers, food stall owners and customers are choking the drainage system in Sector V.
A senior official of the Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority (NDITA), which provides civic services to Sector V, said drainage clearing teams in Sector V were finding lots of plastic waste dumped in the stormwater drainage system.
The entire drainage network in Sector V had been cleared and overhauled in the run-up to the monsoon this year. However, NDITA teams are finding lots of plastic waste now.
Nearly every walkway of Sector V has shacks and stalls made out of flammable items like bamboo, plastic sheets and plywood that sell items from pasta to cigarettes.
The stalls are on walkways, boulevards and even portions of the main road in some places in Sector V that have a mix of office and commercial buildings interspersed with restaurants, pubs and lounge bars.
The footpaths on either side of the Webel building have so many stalls that pedestrians have to walk on the carriageway. Utensils used in the food stalls are washed near the gully pits and waste is dumped along the road, The Telegraph found on Thursday.
The situation was similar near RDB Boulevard, College More and at the RS Software intersection.
“We have held a sensitisation campaign among hawkers not to dump waste in gully pits and manholes but still a section of them are doing so. The primary component of the waste coming out of clogged drainage lines is used plastic items and cutlery,” a senior NDITA official told The Telegraphon Thursday.
Another senior NDITA official said their teams were finding used bags, spoons, forks and broken trays in drainage channels.
Officials blamed these items blocking drains for the streets getting waterlogged after Tuesday night’s rain.
“We have observed that the areas around the food stalls are the worst hit. Our garbage disposal trucks regularly visit the hawkers and we have given out bins to mitigate this problem. But still a section of them are not complying with the directives,” the official said.
Paritosh Gayen, a Mahisbathan resident who runs a stall in Sector V that sells tandoori rotis and chicken curry, said they had no option but to dump leftovers into manholes by lifting the covers.
“We cannot carry the waste home. Where do we store the waste till the garbage trucks arrive? They will start emitting a foul smell and no customer will come near my stall then,” he said.
