Shillong: At 10.00 am on Monday, garbage was still piled up at the Laitumkhrah parking lot adjacent to the market. Shops were already open and the stench was unbearable for passers- by who had to use that road to enter the Veronica Lane to visit Bansara Eye Care Centre, Bethany Society, Asian Confluence – a popular conference centre and other institutions located on that Lane.
When the issue of reckless dumping of garbage was pointed out to the Chief Minister on Tuesday, he said that the Deputy Commissioners have been told to use sections of the law to deal with this menace.
Dumping of garbage anywhere and everywhere has become the order of the day in Shillong and city and even in the suburbs. Although every locality has a Dorbar Shnong, most of them do not seem to care about the garbage dumps in their area. Normally, management of garbage should have been a local governance responsibility and not just the onus of the Shillong Municipal Board (SMB) an official of the Shillong Municipal Board said.
When asked what the inspectors in the SMB were doing, the official said they go about their duties but it is too much for them to supervise the dumping of garbage everywhere.
It may be reminded that urban Affairs Minister had once stood guard at the garbage dumping ground at the Laitumkhrah Market parking lot and told everyone to wait for the vehicle to come and collect the garbage and not to dump it on the road. For a while the area remained clean but now its back to square one.
Managing garbage has become the biggest challenge for the Government and perhaps the old ways of doing things no longer works feel a lot of the residents of Laitumkhrah. They feel that intractable problems like garbage disposal require innovative techniques of which the most important is to acquire proper landfills away from the city in degraded lands.
For now the best way to discipline the residents of all localities is to penalise them for polluting rivers, drains and public roads. But for this citizens’ vigilante groups are needed.