About six months after municipal elections were held in Kashmir, the elected local bodies have often ignored their civic responsibility.
Meemneder locality in southern Kashmir’s Shopian district isa case in point.
Heaps of garbage littered around Meemneder cause anxiety andinconvenience to the local residents.
They complain that rancid odor emanating from the rubbishpervades the whole locality, making it difficult for them to stay inside theirhomes with windows open.
“The stink is so strong that it easily makes usnauseous,” said Mohammad Iqbal Naik, a resident.
Municipal Committee Shopian, according to Naik, has not eveninstalled a garbage bin in the area, forcing people to dump waste on sidewalksin the locality.
“Dozens of times we approached the municipal officialsin this regard but to no avail,” Naik added.
Many residents said that they had never seen the chairman orany councillor of the Municipal Committee in the district ever since local bodypolls were held in 2018.
Interestingly, for the 17 member Municipal Committee ofShopian 11 councillors, all Kashmiri Pandit migrants, who filed theirnominations were elected uncontested and Subash Chander Koul was nominated asthe chairman.
According to officials, while Koul showed up at Committee’soffice barely a few times, none of the councillors have ever visited theirwards.
Ghulam Mohidin Wani, another resident said that the streetslittered with food leftovers invite stray dogs which pose a serious threat tothe lives of women and school going children.
Wani said that the garbage has also choked the drains andirrigation streams in the area.
“It has now started taking a toll on our nearbyorchards. Due to the frequent blockage of streams, we are sometimes unable toirrigate our farms properly,” Wani said.
“The streams carry all the dirt into their orchards.”
Shrugging off his responsibility, Executive OfficerMunicipal Committee Shopian, Imtiyaz Ahmad told Greater Kashmir that cleaningthe streets of garbage was the responsibility of those people who litter it.
“It is not the problem of one particularly area,”Ahmad said.
When asked why the committee failed to provide garbage bins,he hung the phone up and later did not answer calls from this reporter.