Bhatkal: Jamiabad Road back to being dirty after cleanup

Bhatkal 8 September 2018: (Bhatkallys News Bureau) Just over a month after the Mina road along with Jamia Abad road got a clean makeover as the Heble Panchayath officials in the first week of August cleaned the infamous Al-Mina road and surrounding localities off all the garbage after repeated complaints by the residents and thorough follow up by Bhatkallys.com, the Jamia Abad road is once again being loaded with the garbage. The problem that is being faced by the nearby residents can be speculated by a drive through the road near 'Kadi Machine' as the garbage is causing the pollution of the air with its sting. However the Al-Mina road where banners have been put up warning about punishment that will be initiated against the offenders, remains in a better position. Heble Panchayath officials, once again are blaming the Town Municipal Council, for not co-operating and allowing them to dump garbage at their dump yard even after receiving letter from the office of Uttara Kannada Deputy Commissioner. Syed Ali Maliki, speaking to Bhatkallys.com said "The TMC is not co-operating with us despite receiving a letter from the DC where he has asked them to allow us to dump our garbage in their dump yard". TMC President Sadiq Matta, on the other hand spoke about their own problems and said "The dump yard we have is for dumping of garbage for 50 years, but in only 20 years till date over half of the dump yard has been used and with the pace we are going at we will run out of dump yard for ourselves in 20-25 years, in this situation we cannot allow them to dump at our yard, we are already supporting the Jali Patan Panchayath to dump at our yard". Asked about the letter received from the DC, Sadiq said "We have not received any orders from the DC, we just received a request letter, so we are not bound to obey it". However, Syed Ali, claims that the garbage issue will be resolved in a week time and another cleaning drive will be initiated in a week's time, while the dump yard issue will be resolved by November as the panchayath is giving thought to leasing a private property and converting it into dump yard". Amidst the blame games of the officials, the major question that remains to be answered is who is responsible for the poor condition of the streets? The panchayath officials cites their cleaning drives and says they are making efforts while not being allotted permanent dump yard and blames the residents for their irresponsible acts of 'playing with the lives' of residents where the garbage is being dumped. And rightly so, one can conclude that we as the responsible citizens are failing to be good Samaritan to our own society and people, we need to step up and be dutiful to our social behavior and responsibility and be kind to the people living in these areas and use right channels to dump the garbage. (Bhatkallys News Bureau/ Ismail Zaorez)