Heaps of waste or Baltana’s landmarks!

Zirakpur: Heaps of garbage at Baltana in Zirakpur have more or less become its landmark for all wrong reasons. These not only spread stench all over the place but have contributed a lot in making it an eyesore for residents, who are left with no choice but to live with the filth around. So much so that residents claimed that the locality has now become infamous for pungent smell, where people use the stench as a guiding factor for visitors to the area.
Aman Agarwal, a resident said that, “Garbage is collected from many areas in the locality and dumped here, where it remains for several weeks. This has led to a pungent smell emanating from the area.”
Another resident Sunil Verma, a doctor, stated that, “Most of the residents have been living here for the past several years, but many are unaware that the garbage collected here emanates poisonous gases as well, which are so toxic. These can have a huge deteriorating impact on their health. But they too are helpless as the administration instead of getting the area cleared prefer to look the other way.”
Not only the garbage dumps, vacant plots are also being used to throw garbage by some residents as well, which often gets ignored by the sanitation staff and rots there. Prema Nautiyal, another resident said, “To an extent it’s the fault of the residents, who just for the sake of their convenience throw the garbage at any secluded place or vacant piece of land. If residents throw the garbage at designated places, at least the surroundings would remain more clean.”
However, the garbage dump remains a bane for the people and also the commuters as well. Jujhar Singh, a resident, said that, “During the monsoon, we faced a lot of problems because of the huge piles of garbage. Whenever it rained, it took more than five hours for the pungent smell to fade away. It only went away once the garbage dried up again.”
Apart from humans, animals, especially stray cows, keep sitting near the dump for munching leftovers and often end up eating polythene bags, along with other waste. Siddhika Sharma, a student who lives in the area, said that, “I really feel that these animals are dependent on us, they do not know that polythene or anything dangerous would cause them serious health complications. In our ignorance we keep our surroundings dirty and make the animals eat the filth. The dump should be cleaned and the garbage must be processed properly on a regular basis.”