What is pertinent is that citizens even if they flag these open-air heaps cannot continually do so. It is frustrating, time consuming and enervating besides being completely impractical. Authorities need to clamp down with a permanent solution, be it on public roads or private premises
Pic/Ashish Raje
A derelict structure in south Mumbai, a mansion, still showing signs of magnificence despite decay, has become an open-air garbage bin. The structure, featured in a report in this paper, seems to be empty. There is no watchman or guard.
Pictures to go with the report showed the compound overflowing with garbage. The debris was straining at the gates and at many spots seemed to have spilled out of the fence. The report cited local leaders stating that the owner has to take some responsibility, while the owner claimed helplessness because of ill-health. The BMC also asked the owner to clean and maintain the property. The debris gets soaked in the rain and one suspects rodents are rife there, as are mosquitoes and flies. One also saw a lot of half-eaten food packets and garbage bags, which showed that those adjacent are disposing of waste here. Some were also using the space as an open-air toilet. This report evinced response, simply because this is the state of several places in the city, where empty buildings or corners become open air garbage bins, breeding filth and posing as a huge health hazard.
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What is pertinent is that citizens even if they flag these open-air heaps cannot continually do so. It is frustrating, time consuming and enervating besides being completely impractical. Authorities need to clamp down with a permanent solution, be it on public roads or private premises. One cannot expect citizens to be eternally vigilant. Fines for those dumping garbage and even using spaces as toilets and then, some way in which this can be stopped completely. Citizens too must stop using these structures as bins because ironically, people doing so are from the same locality, spreading ill-health within their neighbourhood.
Iron-clad action and not a stop-gap solution is the answer to this one. Let us see this familiar and disgusting pattern change once and for all.
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