• 24 Pourakarmikas to be exclusively hired for this purpose
• Garbage lifting to begin before Dasara; Tenders invited

Mysore/Mysuru: After its proposal to install over 75 CCTV cameras all along the 43.5-km Ring Road failed to materialise, the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) has now decided to hire a team of dedicated Pourakarmikas to clean the Ring Road. The cleaning task will begin before Dasara-2022 and it will be a continuous affair.

To give some muscle to the MCC and stop people from dumping garbage on the Ring Road, the MCC had in 2021 proposed digital surveillance to instil fear among those who are throwing garbage. However, this plan did not take off.

“We will hire 24 Pourakarmikas to clean the Ring Road and this team will be exclusively hired for this purpose only. They will not be used in any other job. The team will do its work round the year,” MCC Commissioner G. Lakshmikantha Reddy told Star of Mysore this morning.

The city is on the verge of turning into one big dump yard with garbage being strewn everywhere. Isolated places like the service roads of the Ring Road are the favourite spots for people and business establishments to dump the garbage and construction debris.

In the absence of a dedicated garbage dump, villagers of Belavatta, Sathagalli, Hinkal, Koorgali, Bogadi, Srirampura, Hosahundi, Hanchya, Alanahalli and Siddalingapura discard waste all along the Ring Road. Heaps of garbage including construction waste and animal and poultry waste from slaughterhouses are discarded indiscriminately along the Ring Road. This apart, areas around Devegowda Circle, Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) Centre, Alanahalli Layout Circle, J.P. Nagar Ring Road and H.D. Kote Road are also favourite places to dump.

“The existing Pourakarmikas cannot be deployed for Ring Road cleaning as they have been assigned their respective Wards and hence the decision to hire new 24 Pourakarmikas. The MCC has approved the proposal and tenders have been called. The cleaning work will begin in September, before Dasara,” the Commissioner said. He added that this is not a proposal limited to Dasara. It will continue all days.

When asked about jurisdictional issues of the Ring Road with Panchayats and City Municipal Councils, he said that places of the Ring Road lead to the entry points of Mysuru city and it is not proper to leave the stretch unclean. “We have to give a good impression to the tourists who enter Mysuru city as most of them come through the Ring Road,” the Commissioner added.

“We are also devising an elaborate plan to identify people who dump garbage along the Ring Road. There are provisions of penal action and jail terms as per the Karnataka Municipal Act and we will soon come up with guidelines of enforcement,” Lakshmikantha Reddy added.