Anyone travelling from Hiwri Nagar towards Nandanvan is greeted by a foul smell coming from a huge garbage dump along the road. For months, huge quantities of waste have been illegally dumped on an open plot near the Naag River without attracting the attention of the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC). The site, located just a few metres from St Xavier’s High School, has turned into a dumping ground for heaps of garbage, biomedical waste and construction debris. It poses a serious health risk to students and local residents. The dumping site lies directly under the Metro corridor and beside the bridge connecting the area. A ground visit by ‘The Hitavada’ to the spot on Saturday showed the scale of neglect. The bridge parapet is broken, with large concrete pipes and drinking water pipelines left exposed and half-buried under slush.

 

The carriageway is waterlogged, littered with plastic bags, food packets and household waste. A few metres ahead, the situation is worse. Mounds of old clothes bundled in sacks, cement bags, broken bricks, tiles, glass shards of what appears to be a car windshield, and black HDPE pipes are dumped along the ‘nullah’ that flows past the school. Most alarming is a large pile of medical and ayurvedic waste – discarded syrup bottles, tablet strips, ointment tubes and burnt medicine cartons marked ‘SAFE’ and other brands – dumped in the open, some of it charred and mixed with domestic garbage.

 

“‘The Nullah side has been used for months to dump waste with no action, which has turned it into a breeding ground for mosquitoes, while the broken railing poses a risk to children walking to St Xavier’s High School,” said a concerned resident of the area. Vikas Raibole, Assistant Commissioner, Nehru Nagar zone, NMC assured that he will look into the matter and take necessary action. “Instructions will be issued to the garbage collector to pick up garbage from the spot immediately and regularly so that no garbage accumulates at the spot,” he stated. While the Government spend heaps of money on awareness drives regarding sanitation and cleanliness to improve cities Swachata ranking, these kind of neglect nullify their efforts on ground. The administration need to clean the city to ensure safe and hygienic space.