MOHALI: Call it lacking the vision or not foreseeing the consequences, the municipal corporation left big garbage bins all over the city hoping for gradual filling but never imagined it was making dumping zones.
The idea that people will care about cleanliness and use the bins backfired and heaps of garbage started accumulating around these spots. Accepting that the civic body had not planned for this situation, municipal commissioner Bhupinder Pal Singh said: "The civic body will now remove the bins from these spots and clean up the areas." This after Sector 70 resident Gurkirat Singh Mann moved a contempt petition in the Punjab and Haryana high court, to which the MC commissioner has to file a reply by October 12.
Bhupinder Pal Singh said: "That issue is about a spot in Sector 70 where the MC had placed large dumpsters, thinking that it will remove these containers once these were full. The vacant plot belongs to Gmada (Greater Mohali Area Development Authority), so it seemed an ideal site there but public missed the point of having a bin and started littering outside, which turned in the spot into a dumping zone in no time. We will write to Gmada for asking it to maintain the plot so that it doesn't become a dumping site again."
Gurkirpal Singh Mann, on whose petition the high court put the MC commissioner on contempt notice, says: "The MC is yet to file a reply. The residents are in a Catch-22 situation because of the Gmada-MC divide over jurisdiction. We are always confused about which body to approach to lodge our complaint. Sectors 66 to 85 are no one's jurisdiction apparently when it comes to maintenance. Their land belongs to Gmada, while their sanitation is with the MC. The residents remain at the receiving end. Technically, the responsibility of all civil works is of the MC but, for several works, we are being directed to Gmada by the MC officials."

He said the jurisdiction issue has kept the residents confused. They don't know which agency is responsible for the upkeep of all the sectors. "The level of apathy has forced us to approach the Punjab and Haryana high court in search of relief," Mann said. "There are eight schools, 11 Hospitals, seven health centers, eight banks and 17 different housing societies and colonies in Sector 70. Due to the negligence of the municipal corporation, the sector has turned into almost a small landfill, where even dairy farmers dump their cow dung. They do it right in front of the super market at Mataur village."
Along with the residents of Sector 70, even the villagers of Mataur face hardships. The village is under ward 48. The villagers complain of sanitation problems, business losses, foul air, diseases because of the garbage dump, cow-dung heaps, flies and mosquitoes, dengue fever, chicken pox, and asthmatic problems due to the dumping of construction waste by illegal building-material shops on the government land near a dumping spot."