Cleaning slow, sludge threatens more muck streams on Ghaziabad roads if it rains
Sludge lifted from drains continues to be a public hygiene nightmare across localities, even main roads.
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Over the past few days, ith drain cleaning not keeping pace with the arrival of monsoon, silt dredged from drains but dumped along roadsides has mixed with rainwater and flowed across roads like copious slime.
But with sludge still largely parked where it was, a fresh spell of rain will compound the mess manifold.
While civic officials TOI spoke to on Saturday said clearing of roads is on, visits to different places by our reporters and photographers showed streets are far from free from sludge.
On Kala Patthar Road, some of the sludge was cleared but much of it lay there still, right in the middle of a densely populated neighbourhood with a bevy of condominiums on one side and Makanpur village on the other.
The road under Sahibabad rapid rail station was in a mess, with sludge and rainwater creating a filthy swamp under the sleek transit corridor, which is days away from a full inauguration.
Pedestrian space at a number of places on Meerut Road has been converted to swamps by deposits of sludge.
This is the main kanwar route that lakhs of devotees will take over the next 15 days.
Municipal commissioner Vikramaditya Singh Malik said, "The sludge extracted from drains cannot be removed when it is in semi-liquid state as it carries a lot of weight and payment to contractors or agencies is made basis the weight. So it is left to dry, and removed after two-three days. Unfortunately, it rained, which led to the situation we are in.
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But we have removed it from many places."
Asked about the delay in drain cleaning, Malik said, "By June 15, we had completed the first round. This is the second round. Work is ongoing and a visible improvement in the situation will be seen in a week or so."
In industrial belts, whose maintenance was taken over by Uttar Pradesh State Industrial Development Authority (UPSIDA) on April 1, the situation is no different.
In Meerut Road industrial area, sludge has narrowed the road width, while in Sahibabad, broken roads and waterlogged streets mar smooth commute. "All drains with 1 metre width have been cleaned and road repair work has been done. In Sahibabad industrial area alone, we have spent Rs 4 crore in cleaning drains and repairing roads," said Raghunandan Singh Yadav, DGM of UPSIDA.
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