Perumbakkam residents urge local body officials to find alternative dumpyard

According to the people here, the Perumbakkam village panchayat was dumping garbage at a vacant plot near the panchayat office, which was affecting the health of those living around the area.

With more than 50,000 people residing in the locality, the Perumbakkam village panchayat located near OMR, which comes under the St Thomas Mount panchayat union, is one of the fast developing areas. Sources said that a large chunk of the population were government employees, who preferred the quiet suburb for its greenery.

According to sources in the panchayat, the local body collects up to 15 tonnes of garbage every day. “Till the last few months, they were dumping the garbage in the dumping yard in Oragadam. But after the villagers there began protesting the dumping of garbage there, the panchayat began to dump the wastes inside their premise,” said a panchayat official.

But this has not gone well with the local residents, who charged that the foul smell emanating from the mounting garbage was unbearable. They claimed that the situation was at its worst at Prabu Nagar and Jaya Nagar, located close to the panchayat.

There is a community hall very close to the place where the garbage is being dumped. It is often embarrassing for those organising functions there, as the guests will have to endure the stench from the garbage pile. “The officials should soon look for an alternate place to dump the garbage. Because, if they continued this, the situation would become really worse during the rains,” said Rajesh, a resident of Prabu Nagar.

When contacted, the panchayat secretary Jayaraman said, “We have informed the Block Development Officer regarding this and we would solvethe problem.” The panchayat is planning to do source segregation among other measures to address thegarbage issue.