Half a month needed to dispose of garbage left behind by kanwariyas: Haridwar officials
Garbage disposal during the yatra had been a problem for the administration as huge crowds of pilgrims made some areas inaccessible for the sanitation trucks.
The flow of devotees to Haridwar during the two-week-long Kanwar Yatra ended on Wednesday, but it would take another fortnight for the authorities to fully clean up the tonnes of garbage they have left behind.
A record 5.5 crore kanwariyas visited Haridwar this year, officials said.
According to an estimate, so much waste has accumulated that a proper cleaning campaign would take at least half a month.
Garbage disposal during the yatra had been a problem for the administration as the huge crowds of pilgrims made some areas inaccessible for the sanitation trucks.
"During Kanwar Yatra, lakhs of kanwariyas reached Haridwar by foot and in vehicles every day. This made it impossible for the sanitation workers to take garbage trucks everywhere. As a result, regular cleaning was not done in some areas. But in the areas where they were able to go, cleaning continued uninterrupted," District Magistrate Mayur Dixit told PTI.
Municipal Commissioner Nandan Kumar also admitted that constant arrival of devotees to Haridwar in the last 15 days had badly hit the regular cleaning system.
"It is anticipated that about 10,000 metric tonnes of garbage has been accumulated in the corporation area. The exact figure will be known only after a day or two," he said.
Cleaning of the city area has already begun; in the initial phase, urban roads and Ganga ghats are being cleaned, he said, adding that this will be completed in three days.
Around thousand sanitation workers are deployed for cleaning the municipal corporation area, he added.
Most of the Shiva devotees who visited Haridwar collected Ganga water from Har Ki Pauri.
According to Nitin Gautam, President of Shri Ganga Sabha, an organisation that manages Har Ki Pauri, the biggest problem in the area is the plastic waste that kanwariyas left behind. This include bags, polythene sheets, plastic glasses and cups, and polythene or plastic sheets used for bedding.
The Shri Ganga Sabha is engaged in the cleaning works along with the administration. They had anyway been trying to clean the ghats late at night.
The major contributors to the waste in the Kanwar Mela area were the bhandaras set up by voluntary organisations and some private individuals for the service of kanwariyas, the locals said.
According to Vipin Sharma, a local resident, the kanwariyas discarded the disposable glasses and plates they were served the juices and sherbets in on the roads.
The municipal corporation and the district administration have however started a garbage disposal campaign, officials said, adding that if the weather remains favourable, the city is expected to be clean again in about a fortnight.
