Kothrud garbage depot is dumped

The municipal commissioner said all the garbage accumulated in the city would now be dumped at Urali Devachi and Undri Pisoli. He said it was the moral duty of the civic administration to beautify the entire site of garbage depot as the local residents had been facing severe hardship for years. He said the administration would soon work out various proposals for beautification of the site. He made it clear that not a single truck of garbage would be unloaded at Kothrud depot from October 25.

Gaikwad said the civic administration would soon take steps for garbage clearance once it is through with the micro-level planning. He said the ambitious solid waste management programme was aimed at clearing the garbage once in 24 hours. Stating that there were about 2300 garbage collection centres in the city, he said the administration had identified 300 collection centres, where dustbins were filled upto their capacity 8211; 4.5 tonnes, every day. He said 400 centres had been identified, which collect about two tonnes of garbage every day while remaining 1600 centres were found collecting less than two tonnes of garbage per day.

The municipal commissioner said the corporation would purchase 12 compactors, one for every ward office, which would play a major role in garbage clearance. He expressed confidence that by May next year, all the garbage collection centres would be attended once in a day, which would happen for the first time in city8217;s history.

Gaikwad said he was planning to undertake garbage clearance operation during the night at Karve Road, Ghole Road and Aundh zonal offices on experimental basis.

In an attempt to streamline the traffic on city roads, the administration with the help of traffic police had identified 72 bottleneck spots where various works like road widening, reducing area of islands and removal of encorachments would be initiated. Gaikwad said he had a set up a special team, comprising civic and police officials, which would hold a weekly meeting to review the work..

The administration, Gaikwad said, has initiated a process of building four truck termini at Balewadi, Ramtekdi, Balewadi and Dhankawdi after taking into confidence the transport operators. The trasport operators had volunteered to build infrastructures, required for truck termini, which would accommodate about 1500 trucks.

To a question, he said the PMC would construct a parking lot between Dengle bridge and Shivaji bridge along the river bank for private bus operators. While another parking lot would also be constructed near Sambhaji bridge for private vehicles to reduce the traffic congestion on Laxmi Road, Kelkar Road, Tilak Road and Kumthekar Road. In addition, the PMC had identified 12 plots for parking space in the city, he said.

Gaikwad admitted that the PMC had failed to tackle the water crisis in Hadapsar 8220;due to communication gap.8221; He said he had authorised zonal officers to provide water tankers in their respective jurisdictions.