Patna Municipal Corporation resumes door-to-door garbage collection in Patna

PATNA: Door-to-door garbage collection resumed in the city on Tuesday after almost five months under the direct supervision of Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC). Chief minister Nitish Kumar launched the service on Monday on the eve of 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
The municipal body has not fixed any user charges so far. Last time, the agency entrusted with the task of collecting garbage charged Rs30 to 60 from each house for providing the service.
The civic body has deployed 375 auto trippers, 10 sweeping machines, 100 large bins and 106 smaller bins for door-to-door garbage collection in the city without the involvement of any outside agency.
Sources in the PMC said the auto trippers and handcarts would collect the garbage from households by playing music so that people know that the vehicle arrived at their doorstep and come out to give the trash.
Deputy PMC commissioner Vishal Anand said door-to-door garbage collection this time would be directly executed by the civic body. “The service has been restarted in all the 75 wards of the city. Now, the PMC workers will go to every house for garbage collection. They will also educate people about how to segregate solid and wet waste,” he said.
However, the residents in several areas claimed that no one came to collect waste, but those who utilized the service were upbeat about it.
Mamta Chaudhary of Makhaniya Kuan in Ward 41 said: “The restarting of door-to-door garbage collection is a big relief as we no longer need to think where to dump our waste. The agencies earlier involved were charging more than the fixed payment. I had to pay Rs60 to the agency for collecting waste from our house.”
Ziaul Haque from Khazanchi Road said earlier the service was not regular. “Sometimes, the workers of the agency remained absent for three to four days in a week. We hope it will not be repeated again,” he said.