Rawalpindi wears appearance of a town that has admitted defeat. Mounds of garbage are piled up on either side of narrow streets that residents say haven’t been swept in days. Driver of autos or bikes have to swerve around the muck and the civic body is virtually absent. “My city fares poorly on all parameters -- waste collection, solid-waste management, dustbins placement, sanitation strategies and behaviour of RWMC sweepers, all seem bizarre. The civic body has performed poorly,” says Azhar Abbas, a Fazal Town resident. “Officials blame the performance on poor resources. Nowadays they don’t even record complaint. The only answer is shortage of manpower, but it looks there is no permanent head of the civic body. Lack of cleaning staff and poor management on part of those responsible is the reason why the city scores very poor,” says Mazhar Imam from Faisal Colony. Hamid Zaidi from Shah Khakid Colony says: “The sanitation situation is worsening by the day. Commuting is difficult as garbage heaps is common and there is a permanent stench in the air. Be it Dhoke Kashmirian or Tipu Road, almost all localities have a big problem of garbage disposal.” “You don’t find anyone sweeping garbage early in the morning as was the practice in the past. Removal of garbage happens once in two or three days. RWMC sweepers are often seen at the school-going time. They sweep without sprinkling water on the ground thus raising dust right in front of the open shops,” says Duayay Fatima from Gulzar-e-Quaid. “Even in posh areas, garbage trucks are rarely seen, green spaces are littered with rubbish, and residents feel desperate. It is a daily battle for pedestrians and cars to navigate the piles of plastic bottles, discarded food containers and animal excreta. The stray animals love it, but residents are at breaking point,” says Manzar Ali from Scheme III. “The manpower and infrastructure issues that we face today are a result of unplanned development over the last 10 years,” says Sohail Nazar, a trader. Nasim Zahra from Airport Housing Society says: “Signs of the dysfunction are everywhere. Area playgrounds have been abandoned and left to decay, while neighborhood parks and ponds have become dumping grounds.” “Those who clear garbage from outside their homes do it by discarding it out of sight in another part of the street. Even if the city’s administrative problems are solved, many feel the biggest challenge is changing attitudes in a populace often happy to dump at will,” she adds. We don’t see a municipal worker around here for days at a time. When stray animals die and lay rotting here, sometimes we have to cover them with soil ourselves,” “One of the first things an outsider notices in the city is how scarce garbage cans are on the streets. As such, sometimes huge amounts of trash gets piled up in the area that surrounds the can. A lot of food and drink are sold on the sidewalks, so if you buy a freshly-squeezed orange juice from a street stall and then go walking with it, you may have to carry around the empty plastic cup for miles before you find somewhere to deposit it,” says Shabeeul Hussain from Mangraal Town. “From a residential point of view, garbage is not picked up in most neighbourhoods, and the garbage truck guys are only good at sorting the garbage, hoping to scavenge things they can sell later on,” says Afreen Naqvi from Dhoke Lilhaal.
