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Valley stinks to high heavens
- Doctors warn of myriad diseases’ outbreak
KATHMANDU, AUG 27 -
Garbage collection in the Valley halted for the fifth consecutive day on Friday after locals near the Aletar landfill site in Nuwakot district upped their ante.
With the disruption, streets of the Capital are filled with stinking piles of trash, posing threat to people’s health. Health experts have raised the alarm against an outbreak of waterborne diseases if the waste is not collected at the earliest.
Director of Shukra Raj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital, Dr. Saroj Prasad Rajendra said, “If the trash is not collected, it might lead to an epidemic of infectious and waterborne diseases like diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera, eye infection, typhoid and hepatitis, among others.” Echoing Rajendra’s views, Director of Epidemiology and Disease Control Division, Dr. GD Thakur said infectious diseases might spread if garbage goes piling up in the streets. “Garbage is considered to be the hotbed of waterborne diseases in the rainy season,” said Thakur.
The locals and the concerned officials, on the other hand, are locking horns over less significant issues. Legal Advisor of Solid Waste Management and Resource Mobilisation Centre (SWMRMC) Dipendra Oli said locals have rebuffed their call for talks on various pretexts. “We have been asking the locals for the last few days and even issued an official request for talks but they didn’t pay attention,” said Oli adding that the locals asked the centre to send a vehicle to fetch them.
He added that sending a vehicle to fetch the demonstrators would set a wrong precedent. “So, we didn’t send a vehicle,” he added. Nevertheless, Aletar locals do not buy this argument. “We were ready to come to talks but the officials said they were busy,” said Chandra Bahadur Shrestha, a local. Shrestha added the obstruction would continue unless the government fulfills all of their demands.
Locals residing near the landfill site have been obstructing waste disposal since Monday putting forth a 14-point demand, including employment for 25 locals and establishment of an 80-bed hospital.
According to KMC, over 1400 tonnes of garbage is awaiting disposal in the Capital’s streets. Oli said they are looking for alternatives to dispose the garbage. “We are getting a lot of pressure fearing that the garbage in the streets might lead to outbreak of diseases.” He added that the situation might change for better from Saturday.
Posted on: 2010-08-28 08:20
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