The townspeople of Patuakhali municipality have been suffering for long due to serious environment pollution as the municipal authorities cannot clean the town regularly in the absence of necessary manpower and equipment.
The dustbins along the roadsides of the town are full of garbage. The townspeople dump their waste near the dustbins as it can no longer contain trash. As a result, most of the streets are littered with garbage which is polluting the town seriously.
The people cannot move along the roads as the decomposed organic materials emit awfully bad odour making it difficult to breathe in the air.
Abdur Rab Miah, a resident of Charpara area of the town, alleged,5 “The cleaners come here in every eight days to take away the rubbish from the local dustbins”.
When contacted, Jalal Talukder, conservancy officer of the town, said, “We have a total of 149 cleaners to keep the town hygienic for its citizens. But it is not sufficient to serve the purpose”.
“We need 50 more cleaners if we want to keep the town clean. But the municipality does not have an adequate fund to recruit more staffers,” he also said.
The officer also said that they had only two trucks, six vans and 60 trolleys which are inadequate to work for nine wards of the town.
Sometimes the trucks go out of order but it is not repaired as its parts are not available in the district.
“The municipal mayor sent a proposal to the ministry concerned seeking allocation of fund for purchasing necessary equipment. But we have not yet received any positive response from them,” the officer said.