By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, Sept. 8: With major festivals including the Hindu festival of Dashain round the corner, the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has intensified its preparation to keep the city clean.
Considering the upcoming major festivals, the Environment Management Division of the metropolis office has called private and community based organisations to be responsible to collect garbage and to intensify their cleaning campaign at their respective areas.
As compared to normal days, the city produces more wastes during festivals, said Hari Kumar Shrestha, chief of the division. The city dwellers should now improve the practice of household waste management, said Shrestha adding that the sole effort of KMC couldn’t be achieved the aim of keeping the city waste free.
As the Dashain is nearing, the Metropolis would give priority to clean religious sites and inner alleys of all wards, said Shrestha.
“KMC produced huge amount of backlog garbage during the time of festival and procession. This needed to be managed immediately; otherwise, it will produce foul smells.”
The KMC would try to keep the environment clean, because public participation is high during the festivals, he added.
Therefore, the KMC has urged the private and community based companies to intensify their waste collection task in their respective areas, said Shrestha adding that the Metropolis would make an extra effort to maintain cleanliness of the city.
Nirmal Baral, chief of Waste Management Division, said if the private companies responsible for collecting waste would continue timely collection and management of waste in their respective places, then, it could ease the problem.
“The waste collection should not be halted showing any administrative or other reasons,” Baral said.
Senior Vice-President of Solid Waste Management Association, Ram Kumar Ghimire shared that in a lack of transfer station, the companies working for the waste collection in the Valley have been failed to work properly in waste management. The KMC should be divided into cluster and give responsibility to the companies based on their capacity, said Mitra Prasad Ghimire, general secretary of the association.