Take a look around Lakdi Pool, Zhanda Chowk in Kishanwadi, Warasia and scores of other areas. The fact that nobody cares couldn't be spelt out more boldly if it was written in capital letters. If Lakdi Pool residents complain that solid waste is dumped into the stormwater drain , Assistant Municipal Commissioner A F Saiyed only says, ``Garbage is dumped (into the drain) at odd hours. We can't prevent people from doing so. But now we're looking for a place to install garbage containers.''

Rameshbhai Patel of Warasia complains that his neighbourhood looks filthy at all times. And this is apparently where absenteeism comes into the picture. Fatehpura ward officer Gopalbhai Parmar says even punitive action does not discourage safai workers from staying away. South Zone I B Peerzada, too, throws up his hands in helplessness.

If it isn't a bunch of sweepers holding the entire VMC to ransom, it is the paucity of garbage containers and dumper-placers. Against a need for 650 containers to accommodate the 550 tonnes of solid garbage the city generates daily, the VMC has 300 vats and 15 dumper-placers against a need for 35.

Municipal Commissioner G R Aloria admits the necessity for a system that works. ``The current situation is the fallout of the absence of a perspective plan'', he says, but adds confidently, ``The system will be straightened out in a few months. No excuses will be tolerated.''

But the commissioner doesn't say anything about the removal of the garbage. Former deputy mayor and BJP councillor Bhupendra Patel complains that in certain societies, garbage vats are not cleared for a couple of days, leaving people with no option but to burn the waste.

After the garbage is cleared, then what? The city's waste is supposed to be dumped in land-fill sites away from habitation, but Vadodara has grown so fast, that the sites are now in the city. Passing through Vadsar, one of the city's seven land-fill sites, is virtually impossible, as animal carcasses and the waste of slaughtered animals are freely dumped there.

The land-fill site at Kalyannagar, Karelibaug, will be laid over by a road, but Jayantibhai Parmar, a local, says the VMC needs to spray insecticides to nip a mosquito-menace in the bid.

``In Gajrawadi, people cut open dead buffaloes and other animals for the skin. Employees of the Narsinhji Industrial Estate bear the brunt of foul smell,'' says Jitubhai Patel, secretary of the estate's association, adding that several complaints to the VMC yielded no results.

The practice of dumping animal carcasses in land-fill sites is a common practice, though the VMC has an incinerator meant expressly for dead animals. Senior sanitary inspector of Gajrawadi Ward Suresh Pancholi has no explanation why this should be, especially in view of the civic chief's instructions to use the incinerator.

After Express Newsline highlighted the issue recently, Aloria reportedly reprimanded health department officials, and promised that ward offices would soon be provided separate vehicles to carry carcasses to the incinerator.

Despite the mechanism -- present and promised -- about 50 tonnes of the city's solid waste generated by scores of illegal housing societies do not reach the dumping ground, but are dumped into the Vishwamitri or into stormwater drains.

This is something Additional City Engineer B S Trapasia, who is in charge of solid waste management, and Aloria admit. ``But we'll take care of this in the near future'', says the civic chief.

But that still won't end Society for Clean Environment V V Modi's regrets that degradable and bio-degradable waste is not separated. But then, there's only so much the VMC appears able to do.