Roads, drains, garbage form unholy trinity in #Vaishali Sector 3

With close proximity to Vaishali Metro Station and Mahagun Metro Mall, one of the most popular shopping malls in the area, one would assume that residents of the Vaishali’s Sector 3 would be a happy lot. However, like other areas, the sector’s 16,000 residents too have to struggle with the common problems of broken roads, open garbage dumps and overflowing sewage.

Established in 1986, the sector has a total of 1,032 plots that were all sold to private builders by the Ghaziabad development authority (GDA) the same year. In 1992, the authority handed over the sector to the Ghaziabad municipal corporation.

The sector is divided into six blocks from A to F and does not have any government facility except for an office of the income tax department.

In the past three years, construction on seven new highrise societies has been started in the area, though none of them have been completed yet.

Broken Roads
Residents complained that private builders damaged the sector’s internal roads 10 years ago and the corporation is yet to repair them.

“We have filed various complaints with the corporation to repair our damaged roads, but nothing has been done for the past 10 years. The roads are not only broken, but also covered with discarded construction material and hence are in need of carpeting,” said Devinder Singh, secretary, Sector 3 residents’ welfare association (RWA), Vaishali.
Officials, however, assured that road repair work in the area is in the pipeline.

“The area’s municipal corporator has submitted the list of roads that are to be repaired in Sector 3, Vaishali. As carpeting will require huge funds, patchwork on internal roads has been suggested. It will start by the first week of May,” said DK Sinha, additional municipal commissioner, Ghaziabad.
Overflowing Sewage

According to residents, the area’s sewer lines are unable to keep up with the increasing population in the sector. Hence, overflowing sewage has become a major concern.
“Sewage water continues to overflow all through the year, inundating the roads in front of houses. Since builders have made more flats than the number allocated for a single plot, the burden has increased on sewer lines that were designed for fewer houses,” said Vinod Kumar Sharma, president of the Sector 3 RWA.

According to officials, municipal workers are sent to unclog sewer lines whenever residents complain.
“It is the residents themselves who dump their garbage in the sewer lines, which results in blockage. However, whenever we receive such complaints, we send our workers to unclog the lines, which resolves the problem,” said Dr RK Yadav, district health officer.
Open Garbage Dumps

Sector residents complained that the various vacant plots in the sector have turned into stinking open garbage dumps.

“We have stopped opening our windows as the smell from the adjacent vacant plot reaches our house. Municipal workers clean the plot only once every three days and the stench becomes unbearable by that time,” said Devender Singh Bhadoria, vice-president, Sector 3 RWA.

Officials claimed that due to shortage of municipal workers, garbage is not dumped at the primary collection centre every day.

“There is a primary garbage collection centre right across Sector 3 where all the garbage from Vaishali is collected. Since we are short of workers, garbage is not picked from each sector every day,” said Yadav.