Hyderabad: Morning walkers feel heat

Hyderabad: The stink rising from the lower Tank Bund garbage transfer station has left morning walkers holding their noses. 

With the incessant rains, the unsegregated trash has been degrading faster than it is being transferred, making the entire area reek of rotting garbage. 

“The authorities are making this beautiful park unusable. Early morning, the stench is unbearable, especially after the rains,” says Sudhakar Yadav, president of the Indira Park Morning Walkers Association. 

He alleges that waste water from the transfer station is being let into the park. “There is one outlet of the transfer station into the park which is meant for storm water. However, with continuous rains, the drain is bringing along solid waste from the transfer station into the Viceroy canal, aggravating the problem,” he says.  

Civic officials say they can do nothing. “We usually get 750 tonnes of mixed waste from Musheerabad, parts of Amberpet and Goshamahal. Now this has increased due to the festival season, which drags the transfer time up to 8 am, causing inconvenience to the walkers,” says Dr Bhargava P., assistant medical officer of health. 

The eight trucks that carry waste from the unit to Jawaharnagar start at 9 pm and work till 8 am the next morning to clean the area.  

Sanitation experts say that having a composting unit could mitigate the problem as the garbage would not lie in one location for such a long time. Ironically, an attempt to start such a unit was met with fierce resistance from the walkers.