The Autonagar 7th line, a road that connects Jawahar Autonagar to Ramavarappadu on the outskirts of Vijayawada, wears the look of a wasteland. In most parts, a third of the road is covered by a drain, another third by garbage, leaving the rest of the road for vehicles to use. In some stretches, the garbage spills on to the entire road. This is no abandoned or deserted street, but a part of one of the largest automobile industrial estates in India.
Jawahar Autonagar, situated on the outskirts of Vijayawada, came into existence in the mid-1960s. It is the oldest and largest ‘autonagar’ in Andhra Pradesh. Covering an area of more than 300 acres, the industries, workshops and various businesses in the area provide a wide range of services for large vehicles and automobiles. But the garbage from these industries, as well as discarded automobile parts, have been dumped on the side of the streets for years now, in the absence of a proper solid waste management plan.
Heaps of garbage are often seen being burnt on the side of the road. Azeem, who runs an automobile spare parts store in the area, says that the fumes often cause health problems. “It’s very common for people working here to have breathing problems or a cough. The smell from the drain here and the mosquitoes are also a big problem. But the different authorities simply shrug responsibility and point fingers at each other.”
“Many children take this route to go to school. They have to inhale all these harmful fumes on their way,” says Kareemullah, who works in a workshop in the area. He also adds that the garbage taking up half the width of the road is also a huge problem for the movement of traffic.
Azeem, who has been working in the area for more than 20 years, cannot recollect a time when the road was free of garbage. He says that the road itself was only laid a few years ago. “But the waste has always been dumped here only,” he says.
Whose garbage is it?
Ask who is responsible for clearing the garbage, and a blame game ensues.
There are multiple civic and industrial bodies with a presence in the area. The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) has a huge garbage dumping yard on the Autonagar 7th line, a part of the seamless line of accumulated garbage on the side of the road. However, VMC sanitation authorities say that only the dumping yard belongs to them, while the responsibility for sanitation in the surrounding industrial area falls on the Jawahar Autonagar Industrial Area Local Authority (IALA).
VMC dumping yard in Autonagar
IALAs are industrial area management bodies formed by the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC). However, the Commissioner of the Jawahar Autonagar IALA Nageshwara Rao says that the road does not fall under the limits of their IALA either.
“The dumping yard belongs to the VMC. Beyond that, parts of the road fall under the Kanuru panchayat limits,” he says, adding that the road to Ramavarappadu itself falls under the purview of the R&B (Roads & Buildings) Department.
While there are 50 staff members under the sanitation wing of the Jawahar Autonagar IALA, sanitation supervisor Venkataramana says that their job only comprises clearing the waste on the streets, and that the 7th line road does not fall under their limits.
Moreover, there is no provision for door-to-door collection of waste from the workshops and industries. “The individual industries sell whatever scrap is valuable and dump the rest on the side of the road. Sometimes a few people looking to collect copper from the waste set the garbage heaps on fire,” Venkataramana says.
“There’s the VMC, IALA, and even the JRD Tata Industrial Estate Association. But they all shrug off responsibility, going into technicalities and saying it’s not under their limits. The Kanuru panchayat wouldn’t have the resources to manage industrial waste. Moreover, there are open drains which are a big hygiene concern. If we tell the JRD Tata Industrial Estate Association that industrial waste is being dumped in the drains, they ask us to trace which industry, in particular, is responsible so that they can take action,” Azeem claims.
IALA Commissioner Nageshwara Rao says that the drains are also not under the limits of the IALA, and must be taken up by the VMC.
“The Guntatippa drain and others should be handled by the VMC. They are not local drains. They begin from the Panta Kaluva road. Sometimes, in case of an emergency during rains when there’s a major blockage or spillage, our sanitation department resolves it. But IALA is a small body, we don’t have sufficient funds for such works. VMC is better equipped to handle such problems,” he says.
While the IALA collects taxes from industries under its area, 35% of the taxes go to the VMC. Nageshwara Rao says that the VMC works on the maintenance of approach roads towards Autonagar, but isn’t involved in any works within the IALA limits.
Rejecting reports of a possible collaboration between the VMC and the Jawahar Autonagar IALA towards solid waste management in the area, Nageshwara Rao said that in the past collaborations between the bodies have not worked out.
“We are doing whatever work is possible with IALA funds, like drain construction work along the 100-feet road. But that Ramavarappadu road falls under the R&B Department,” he says.
While Kanuru and Ramavarappadu come under the Vijayawada Rural mandal, they were declared a part of the Metropolitan area of Vijayawada in 2017. The VMC has also proposed expanding its boundaries, to be converted into ‘Greater Vijayawada Municipal Corporation’ by absorbing 45 village panchayats around the city, including Kanuru and other villages under Vijayawada (Rural).
The industrial estate recently turned 53 years old. Yet, the presence of multiple authorities has not improved the surroundings for the thousands of workers who drive the largest automobile service industry in the state.
“I have breathing problems and a bad throat so often that being sick has started to feel normal now,” Azeem says.