After the villagers protested against dumping of domestic waste at unauthorised land fill sites in Sector 138, Noida, the garbage is now seen piling in the basement of societies located along the Noida Expressway, triggering a health scare for the residents.
Garbage disposal for societies, such as Eldeco Utopia, ATS Green and Parsvnath Prestige, is carried out by a private agency, Ecowise Waste Management Pvt Ltd. After the protests, the agency was told to dump the waste at another location in Greater Noida, 40 km from the present site.
The agency claims that it had been providing the service to the societies for the last 10 years without charging anything, but it would no longer be financially viable for it to do so. Collecting garbage from door to door and also having it carried to the designated site for disposal will pose a huge financial burden for the agency, unless the residents paid. Manik Thapar, the director, said it wanted to charge Rs 3 per day, but residents’ body of many societies refused to pay.
But residents have a different version to offer. Jitendra Nath, joint secretary of All Utopian Residents’ Association of Eldeco Utopia, alleges, “Paying the private agency for lifting the garbage is not an issue. But the company discontinued the service without any prior notice. It first stopped collecting garbage from each house and later started negotiating for payments. This is blackmail! If they wanted us to pay, they should have communicated that to us beforehand. But the company just suddenly withdrew its service.”
According to a Noida Authority official, the health department is not supposed to provide garbage disposal services to the residents -- it only cleans roads, open drains and service lanes of the various sectors, where private builders have been allotted land.
RS Agarwal, sanitation inspector of the Authority, echoing similar views, says, “Only areas outside the societies come under our jurisdiction. We are not supposed to clean the area within the complex.”
