Civic body finds excuse for uncleared garbage

CHENNAI: “I have promised the residents that the garbage collection in their area will improve once it comes under the Corporation,” says Neelankarai Panchayat president V Ettiyappan. But residents of the area are in no mood to listen to him, who, they say, has only found a convenient excuse to continue to shirk his work.For the residents of the upmarket Sunrise Avenue, off East Coast Road, it is a problem that they have been stuck with for the past two years. An initiative by local residents to collect their own garbage backfired as the Panchayat president authorised the dumping of garbage collected from across Neelankarai on a private plot off Sunrise Avenue. “That the garbage clearance will improve once the Corporation takes over is only a convenient excuse. He is supposed to ensure that the garbage is cleared every day. But it is done only once a week. The stench is unbearable, especially after a spell of rain,” says SD Sankaralingam, a resident of Sunrise Avenue.But the Panchayat president insists that the dumping is not done on a private plot, but on the street itself. Residents point out that the street is the only approach to the local cremation/burial ground, and locals have to carry their dead right through the garbage on their last journey. “I have asked the residents to be patient. Once the Corporation takes over, they will give us enough bins and garbage trucks. Right now, we have only two trucks for this area and even they are not allowed to dump at  Perungudi. So, we dump it in Sozhinganallur”, says Ettiyappan.But the residents are simply unwilling to accept his reasoning. “Some of the women of this area keep calling him on the phone to press him to do something about the garbage that he dumps on our street. All he has given us so far are empty promises that he will have it looked into immediately. So far, nothing has happened,” says Sankaralingam.“We are looking forward to the day this area is brought under the Corporation. May be, at least then we will have some decent sanitation here,” he adds. Ettiyappan told City Express that he would not be contesting the coming local body polls but his son would be throwing his hat into the ring, even as residents of Sunrise Avenue say they are waiting for the opportunity to show what they think of the work done by the Panchayat president so far.