MAHUD Minister Y Khemchand leads garbage removal drive Spruce up Imphal task taken up ahead of R-Day

By Our Staff Reporter
IMPHAL, Jan 24: Led by Municipal Administration, Housing and Urban Development (MAHUD) Minister Yumnam Khemchand, a garbage cleaning drive was launched today at Imphal city.
The drive was participated by Imphal Municipal Corporation (IMC) Commissioner, Corporators and officials including MAHUD Commissioner M Joy and MAHUD Director Ng Bhogen Meitei.
The drive started at Khoyathong and went along Nagamapal road, BT Flyover, Thangal Keithel, MG venue etc,  removing garbage and waste materials piled up along the way.
Speaking to media persons about the drive, Y Khemchand said that the drive was launched to keep Imphal city neat and clean ahead of the Republic Day celebration.
He also hailed all those social media users who posted pictures and videos of garbage and waste materials disposed of and piled up at different locations of Imphal city.
Khemchand appealed to all residents of Thangal Keithel, Paona Keithel and Nagamapal to be card holders of NGOs which are engaged in picking up garbage and waste materials.
The dirty and messy look of Imphal city can be reduced by 50 per cent when all the households of the city become card holders of NGOs engaged in garbage collection, he said.  
Discarded vegetables and other materials scattered by street vendors have also been contributing a lot in making Imphal city filthy, Khemchand said.
With most of the street vendors refusing to vacate the streets after 8 am, the IMC has been facing many  difficulties in tidying up the streets, the MAHUD Minister said.
Saying that a meeting was held on Thursday with the top officers of IMC including the Commissioner and the Director on keeping Imphal city neat and clean, Khemchand said that Paona Keithel looks relatively clean after waste materials and garbage have been removed by IMC directly in place of NGOs.
He said that IMC has been collecting garbage and waste materials from Paona Keithel twice in a day.
He said that the same initiative would be implemented at Thangal Keithel too.
On being enquired about disposal of waste materials on roads, the MAHUD Minister said that the police were asked to pull up and fine those individuals.
On account of shortage of manpower, IMC cannot monitor disposal of waste materials on roads or roadsides round the clock.
Taking strong exception to the practice of bringing waste materials in plastic bags in fancy cars and disposing the waste materials on roads and other public places, Khemchand appealed to all the people to put an end to this despicable practice immediately.
He appealed to all the people to take the responsibility of keeping Imphal city neat and clean.
MAHUD Director Ng Bhogen Meitei said that garbage and waste materials are usually disposed of at 13 different spots of Imphal city.
He said that necessary steps would be taken up to prevent disposal of waste materials at these spots and keep these spots neat and tidy.
He added that all the efforts of MAHUD and IMC to keep Imphal city neat and tidy would be rendered futile if the people do not cooperate.
Even if a mound of garbage was removed from a spot, another mound of waste materials would be found piled up on the same spot the next day, Bhogen said.
He further appealed to all the people to refrain from disposing of waste materials on roads and other public places which cause a nuisance to the people.