Delhi Stinks, Mumbai Residents Suffering From Poor Air Quality

By M. Santhiran NEW DELHI, Feb 2 (Bernama) -- Most parts of the capital are being hit by uncollected domestic waste for nearly a week following the indefinite strike by more than 130,000 municipal workers. In Mumbai, people are choking from poor air quality with the Air Quality Index (AQI) hovering around 300 to 350 due to a major fire raging for the fifth day at the largest dump site, close to the commercial hub of India. Delhi Municipal Corporation (MCD) workers have been dumping domestic waste along major roads in protest over the non-payment of salary for three months. The strike has worsened since Monday with 16,000 teachers of primary schools under the MDC and medical staff also joining the protest. Nearly 1.2 million students from 1,860 primary schools across the capital are forced to stay at home due to the absence of these teachers. Both the opposition-ruled state government of Aam Aadmi Party (AAM) and central government officials from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are blaming each other for the non-payment of salary. Several workers told Bernama that their normal life was being badly hit with months of outstanding bills to settle. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been talking about smart cities and cleaner India, but they keep on playing politics in paying our salary to us. How are they going to improve the quality of our life?" questioned an MCD worker when met in Old Delhi, one of the areas badly affected by uncollected domestic waste. Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal who has been admitted at a hospital in Bengaluru ordered his party workers and Public Works Department (PWD) to carry out some cleaning work. In Mumbai, hospitals and clinics reported a drastic increase in the number of people seeking treatment for respiratory complications. The fire at the Deonar dump site for the last five days has blanketed most parts of the city, with fire-fighters still battling to contain it. The local authorities ordered schools closed and advised residents to stay indoors. Netizens in both cities have expressed their anger and frustration via the social media over the failure of both the state and central governments to do much on pollution and solid waste management in most of the Indian cities. The World Health Organisation (WHO) had listed 20 most polluted cities of the world, 12 of it in India. --BERNAMA