The Lake Park turns A garbage dump

The Lake Park at Necklace road welcomes people with stench and trash. Post Ganesh, Bathukamma and Durga immersions, the Lake Park has turned into a dumping ground.

The small pond which is located inside the neglected park of HMDA is filled to the brim, by heaps of garbage. Garbage pickers were seen sorting out a mountain of garbage which was dumped on the road over-looking the parking lot. When asked why the garbage was left to rot outside, they said that the actual dump yard from where the GHMC trucks pick-up the garbage has been inundated with rain water, which has made it difficult for them to go inside, as the rickshaws would also get stuck inside. Hence, the garbage was dumped outside.

Every day, three trucks of GHMC come to collect the garbage. However, it is not known why garbage had accumulated in such a massive scale to rot in the open. Water was being pumped out of the temporary dump yard by pipes, which were emptying the garbage-contaminated water right into the pond located inside the park. Several kids were seen playing cricket near the park, unaware of the danger the garbage poses to their health.

This raises a serious question on the preparedness of the authorities during festive season, which is also a time when common man is most vulnerable to dangerous diseases like Dengue, Malaria, swine flu and other fatal diseases.

Garbage collectors punch above their weight

What the civic body is unable to do, twenty garbage collectors in the area do. Ten of them collect garbage from homes and necklace road on the rickshaws provided by GHMC once in 5 years. The workers themselves have to take care of the maintenance of the rickshaws. They are not paid by the government. All they get is from whatever the residents pay. They also make a little by selling the plastics they recover from the garbage.

Laxmi was one of the two women who were busy sorting out the garbage for burnable, non-burnable, cans, glass bottles, plastics, trays, packaging, paper and cloth fabrics. She looked weak and tired, with an unhealthy look showing on her face. She however continued to work without any break.

These garbage collectors work in spite of the health risk. Without health insurance and any benefit from GHMC, they continue their work. There is also no provision for uniforms.