Vijayawada: The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) is making ambitious efforts to secure a place among the top 10 clean cities in the country in Swacch Sarveksan Survey.
The VMC’s efforts may end up in vain as it was not in a position to protect its own office walls from open defecation. Though the Vijayawada city has been declared as Open Defecation Free (ODF) the menace has been continuing and the VMC itself is the worst hit victim.
The northern wall of the VMC office is being used for open urination by people. The road between the canal and the VMC office is stinking with the open urination. The VMC has two gates on this side and are presently being used as the only entrance and exit gates as the other gates on the western side were closed in view of the construction works of the new office building.
The civic body after October 2, took a few initiatives to end open defecation in the city. The sanitation department has identified 14 vulnerable locations in the city.
Another 83 locations were also identified where open urination is rampant. The sanitation department employed 28 people to guard the 14 locations in two shifts. These guards called as Swacch Grahi’s will ensure no one uses these locations for defecation. The VMC also installed Mana toilets at these locations and decorated the urination locations with flowering plants.
But the efforts to contain the menace by the civic body did not yield any results in the last three months and it is now posing a threat to the prospects of the VMC to obtain a better rank in the Swacch Sarvekshan Survey.
Chief medical officer in the VMC, Dr M. Gopi Naik has said they are successful in containing the open defecation at some places but some areas are still problematic.
“We are trying to bring a change in the mindset of the people which would require some time,” he said, adding, “We are also going to penalise the persons who resorts to open defecation.
