Sanitation issue rocks Vijayawada municipal council meet

Vijayawada: The issue of sanitation rocked the Vijayawada municipal council meet held here on Wednesday.  Corporators, of both the ruling and the Opposition parties, raised questions on poor sanitation and blocked drains which are troubling the citizens. Even Mayor Koneru Sridhar expressed anguish over the health and sanitation wing of VMC for not initiating any measures to keep the city clean. The corporators complained of non-availability of sanitation staff.

Senior corporator Muppa Venkateswara Rao, of TD, raised the issue of shortage of sanitary staff and overflowing dumper bins and side drains in Hanumanpet and  Gandhinagar areas and other corporators also raised similar issues in their respective divisions. A majority of the representatives felt that the VMC’s sanitation and health wing was failing to maintain cleanliness in the city, which could spread viral and vector-borne diseases in rainy season.

Ganduri Mahesh, the corporator of Satyanarayanapuram,  said the sanitary staff stopped clearing drains for the last three months  and he complained about negligence of duty by them. Some corporators complained that the old-aged staff, of the Dwcra groups, were not able to clean drains in the hilly areas of the city. The city mayor was dissatisfied with the assistant medical & health officers, who, he said, were ignoring the words of the council and not working along with corporators.

“The corporation is spending Rs 110 crore on sanitation and still the city is not clean and tidy. Almost all divisions in the city are running short of sanitation staff. Dwcra groups and contractors who signed agreements are failing to mobilise workers. They will soon be penalised  for failing to fulfill the conditions in the agreement,” said the city mayor Koneru Sreedhar. The corporators requested the commissioner to take the issue of poor cleanliness in the city seriously, considering the spread of vector-borne and seasonal diseases.