Nagpur: Even as crores of rupees are spent every month on solid waste management, Nagpur continues to struggle with open dumping, irregular garbage lifting, and dirty streets — exposing a wide gap between expenditure and execution. For newly elected Mayor Neeta Thakre and deputy mayor Leela Hathibed, sanitation emerged as one of the most daunting challenges at the very start of their tenure.The scale of the problem is immense. Nagpur generates 1,400 to 1,500 metric tonne garbage every day, but only 1,300 to 1,400 MT is transported to Bhandewadi dumping yard. The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has a sanitary workforce of around 7,200, of which 5,200 workers are deployed to clean city roads and public spaces daily. They are responsible for maintaining over 4,000km of roads across 10 zones.
Despite this manpower and sustained spending, residents across the city continue to complain of garbage lying unattended for days. Many residents claim garbage vehicles either arrive late or do not enter interior lanes at all, forcing people to dump waste in open plots, nullahs, and road corners.Civic data shows over 400 garbage-vulnerable spots, where dumping became chronic. Even after repeated clearance drives, waste reappears within hours — pointing to weak monitoring, irregular door-to-door collection, and a lack of deterrent action against habitual dumpers. Door-to-door garbage lifting was outsourced to two private agencies, with NMC spending nearly Rs 7 crore every month on them. The sanitation crisis cuts across localities. Areas such as Civil Lines, Dharampeth, and Laxmi Nagar too report irregular garbage lifting, while old city areas like Itwari, Gandhibagh, and Mahal, along with several fringe localities, remain dotted with garbage heaps. The spread of the problem across zones highlights systemic failure rather than isolated lapses.Officials admit that staff shortages in supervisory positions, absenteeism, uneven deployment of workers, and weak action against erring contractors diluted accountability. Several wards report that sweeping is not conducted daily, particularly in interior lanes and densely populated slum pockets, worsening public resentment.For mayor Neeta Thakre, who spoke of fixing Nagpur “from the ground up”, sanitation represents both an administrative challenge and a political test. Deputy mayor Leela Hathibed is also under pressure from corporators demanding visible, ward-level improvements. With elections concluded, citizens are expecting quick results, not routine explanations.Both of them will formally take charge from Monday, inheriting a sanitation system burdened by inefficiency and rising public dissatisfaction. Experts warn that without GPS-based tracking of garbage vehicles, ward-wise fixing of responsibility, strict penalties for contractors and habitual dumpers, and daily monitoring at the zone level, higher spending alone will not clean the city.As summer approaches, uncollected garbage poses serious public health risks, including the spread of vector-borne diseases. The coming months will determine whether the city’s new leadership can turn crores of rupees into cleaner streets, or whether Nagpur will continue to drown in its own waste.
