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DIMAPUR — Efforts by the Dimapur Municipal Council (DMC) to curb the rising garbage menace in the city face significant challenges, as shopkeepers continue to ignore directives to maintain two dustbins outside their shops.
Despite the provision of dustbins and dustbin trolleys along the bustling New Market road, traders and customers are contributing to the problem by disposing trash in open spaces.
The DMC's repeated directives to traders and shopkeepers to keep dustbins outside their establishments have not yielded the desired impact, with a casual stroll through the market revealing a blatant disregard for civic responsibility, amidst heaps of garbage along the market’s main thoroughfare.
Despite issuing instructions, it appears that the authorities have put in minimal effort to ensure the directives are effectively implemented, and the directives remain only on paper.
Shopkeepers at New Market, when questioned by Eastern Mirror, revealed that they were mandated to purchase dustbins for INR 500 from the DMC a few months ago. However, several of the dustbins were found abandoned in shop corners or stored in warehouses.
While the majority of shopkeepers admitted to not using the purchased dustbins and did not give reasons for non-compliance, a shopkeeper said that customers often spit in the dustbins when placed outside.
“If we keep it outside our shop, customers and people passing by spit in the dustbin which we purchased from the DMC at an overpriced rate, so we have kept it inside our warehouse,” the shopkeeper explained.
On the DMC's standing order to have a minimum of two dustbins outside each shop, the shopkeepers objected claimed that they were compelled to purchase the dustbins.
“We were made to buy the dustbins and we brought them out of compulsion,” they said.
Although the DMC's role in selling the dustbins could not be confirmed, shopkeepers insisted that the bins were sold to them by the municipal body.
As heaps of garbage and filth continue to be a common sight on the main roads, the market and inner passages inside the market, it is evident that lack of effective implementation by the authorities along with the disregard by the traders and shopkeepers has led to this widespread littering.
However, it is also observed that the garbage woes also reflect a lack of civic responsibility among shoppers and customers.
Street food vendors in New Market who had dustbins placed near their cart, when queried about the matter, viewed that costumers also have to act responsibly and that the responsibility cannot be theirs alone.
A vendor went on to explain that he had placed a dustbin bought from DMC right next to his food stall along with an empty carton box as backup when the dustbin gets full by afternoon.
“I tell my customers to throw their waste in it. But if they refuse to listen, what can I do? Even if I don’t tell them, they should throw their waste in the dustbin which is visibly in front of my cart, within easy reach,” he lamented.
Another vendor who had no dustbin but had placed a carton box near his ‘panipuri’ stand lamented the same.
Nearby, along a row of shops, a single dustbin stood untouched. The lane remained cluttered with waste, underscoring the pervasive lack of civic responsibility and irresponsible behaviour among the public.