VMC workers cleaning plastic waste accumulated in Eluru canal in Vijayawada. | Photo credit: KVS GIRI
The sight of the garbage-strewn Eluru canal near the Vijayawada railway station raises questions about the effectiveness of measures taken by city corporations to keep the canals clean.
Of the three canals and rivers that flow through the city, the Bandar and Ryves canals do not require much cleaning, but the Budameru river and the Eluru canal carry a lot of dirt. The commercial center of the city, One Town, is primarily connected to the Eluru Canal and all waste from commercial enterprises from there lands in it.
To make matters worse, plastic waste has increased tremendously due to the desilting work going on at the pump station near the railway station, and all the waste is being discharged into the canal, said V. Kameswara Rao, a biologist at the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation. “Earlier, garbage used to accumulate once in 15 days. Now, despite daily cleaning of the canal, it accumulates the next morning,” said Mr. Kameswara Rao.
However, civic associations believe that this is a recurring problem and that a system of sanctions must be introduced to control the dumping of garbage in water bodies. “Water from the Eluru canal is used for various purposes, including drinking, in the terminal towns and villages. It is therefore imperative that we keep the canal clean. When sanctions are imposed, the public will hesitate to dispose of garbage in the water bodies,” said General Secretary of the Taxpayers’ Association MV Anjaneyulu.
Currently, no such system exists. However, fencing is built on all bridges built over canals. To ensure that the waste does not go further, the corporation has introduced a filtration system to catch all the waste in a canal near the railway station, said Sreedhar, sanitation superintendent of One Town. “That’s why there is always garbage piled up here,” he said, denying that the canals were not cleaned regularly.
Currently, the company has started efforts to remove hyacinths and garbage in three canals and a stream as part of measures to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes. But as the distillation work at the pump station is expected to take several days, the accumulation of garbage in the Eluru canal may continue for a while.
Published – 05 March 2026 20:44 IST
