By our Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI, Oct 6: It's a strange turn of fate! A spot at Dharapur Daily Market in Kamrup (Metro) district, selected as a beauty spot, is now a garbage dumping ground.
Dharapur Daily Market is a place where green grocers and other traders have been doing a roaring business because of the reputation of fresh vegetables attached to it. This apart, the market place is in close proximity of Lokapriya Gopith Bordoloi Intertiol (MGBI) Airport, tiol Highway 37 and by the side of Dharapur-Mirza Road via Palasbari. This has been the market place where people from the airport side and Dharapur and its nearby areas come to buy vegetables and other commodities.
However, due to scant attention on the part of the Bazar Committee, lessees, gaon panchayat, anchalik panchayat, ZPC, Rani Development Block the market is a veritable stink bomb. People have to enter the market closing their noses with handkerchiefs. The problem lies in the fact that the area has no dust bin or garbage dumping pit.
The area did wear a clean look in November last year when Prime Minister rendra Modi came to Guwahati and spread the message of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. As part of the mission, at Dharapaur Chariali also there were cleanliness drives led by the Azara Revenue Circle officer. During such a cleanliness drive, the district administration identified a portion of the Dharapur Daily Market as the spot to be used to beautify the market and the area. The vendors doing business at the spot were soon evicted, and the very spot was soon fenced with barbed wire. A year has elapsed, and the market is back to square one, as though it has been shielded from Swachh Bharat Abhiyan of the Prime Minister and Nirmal Asom Abhiyan of Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. What is surprising is that the very spot that was fenced to be used as beauty spot is now being used by vendors, traders, green grocers, lessees and others as a dumping pit.
The plan announced at that time was that there would be plantation in the very spot, but even after a year not a single plant has been planted there as yet.