Ayudha Puja festival celebration on Sunday generated heaps of garbage on streets and commercial thoroughfares in different parts of the city.
Though the usual fanfare attached to the festival was missing this year due to COVID pandemic fear, and the social distancing norms in place, most of the people including traders, two-wheeler and four wheeler mechanics, bus, taxi and auto rickshaw operators and others chose to perform no-frills pujas
Associations of various workers, traders, drivers, taxi owners, auto rickshaw operators, merchants usually come together to celebrate the festival by erecting pandals, decorating their business establishments with sparkling lights and playing music with loud speakers. But, it was hardly noticed in the city this year. However, they did not fail to clean up their premises as per the practice. They removed the unwanted items and dumped them on the streets.
According to sources in the Tiruchi Corporation, no sanitary worker, except those on medical emergencies and other pressing situations, was allowed to avail leave on Monday. However, despite their full attendance, garbage heaps were quite visible in several parts of the city.
Discarded and unsold plantain, mango leaves, and pumpkins were found heaped on the roadsides. The seasonal traders and farmers, who set up shops along the roadsides in the thickly populated areas including Woraiyur, Thennur, Thillai Nagar, Srirangam, Palakarai and East Boulevard Road left after abandoning the unsold leaves and banana plantain. They left huge garbage on college road near Chathiram Bus Stand and the other temporary markets including at Anna Nagar and others. Garbage were piled up in Singarathope, NSB Road, Big Bazaar Street, Chinnakadai Street, Nandi Koil Street, Bheema Nagar and many other locations.
Sanitary workers experienced a tough time to clear mounds of garbage on Satharaveedhi in Srirangam, one of the largest flower market in Tiruchi. The traders and workers, who worked overtime for the last two days to cash in on the demand of flowers on account of Ayudha Puja and Saraswathi Puja, had left behind a huge volume of waste.
In some places, volunteers of Shine Treechy and the traffic policemen of Cantonment and Ariyamangalam went on a mission to clear pumpkins and coconuts broken by traders in front of their commercial establishments on Sunday night. Manoj Dharmar, founder of Shine Treechy, said that besides clearing pumpkins and coconuts, they created awareness among the people on avoiding the practice by highlighting the danger posed to the motorists.
A senior official of the Corporation told The Hindu that the festivities had added about 50 tonnes of garbage to the daily collection of about 450 tonnes. Most of the garbage had been removed. Uncleared garbage would be removed on Tuesday, the official said.
