Mangaluru: With the immersion of Goddess Sharada and other idols in the Pushkarini pond within the Kudroli temple premises, the 10-day Mangaluru Dasara came to a close on Saturday, October 20. However, all was not well with the city as a major problem welcomed the civic authorities after the previous night’s festivities. Mounds of garbage now covered the streets throughout which the Dasara procession passed.
On Saturday morning, civic workers were seen cleaning up the massive amounts of waste left behind by the Dasara revelers. In order to encourage the people to take their trash home and make use of the door-to-door garbage collection facility, the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) did not provide any dustbins during the Dasara celebrations. The move, however, backfired as the public began to throw trash on the roads.
The rains on Saturday morning made the task of cleaning up the garbage even more challenging for the civic workers, as the plastic carry bags, ice-cream cups etc, were stuck to the road. The civic workers usually finish cleaning the trash from the roads before 9 AM every day, but this time it took them till noon to finish.
Many of the street vendors also did not provide dustbins for their customers to use, forcing the people to dispose the trash on the roads. Those who did provide dustbins, kept small ones that got filled very fast, and as they were engrossed in their business, they did not empty them regularly, causing them to overflow and mess up the roads.
All these factors led to the city looking like it had just been hit by a Tsunami of garbage. The temple management committee took all measures to ensure that there were no issues during the Dasara procession, however, the did not take any measures to ensure the cleanliness of the city.
In this light, several social activists have opined that strict laws or the imposition of high penalties is the solution to this problem.
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