KATHMANDU, MAR 16 – Garbage collection which was obstructed for five days in Kathmandu Valley resumed from Monday morning after an agreement between the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) and employees affiliated with 11 worker’s union.

Collection of waste began from today with the garbage collectors collecting piles of trash that had remained uncollected in various places in the Valley since March 11. The garbage that lay strewn along the roadside at prominent places in Kathmandu and Lalitpur had started to seriously threaten public health and increase possibility of spread of communicable diseases.

About 800 tonnes of garbage generated by Kathmandu and Lalitpur on a daily basis had remained uncollected due to protests by locals of the Sisdole Landfill Site in Nuwakot after a three-year-old boy identified as Rijan Shrestha died after being hit by a KMC vehicle ferrying garbage from Kathmandu on March 11. After the angry locals torched four garbage vehicles belonging to KMC,  KMC employees affiliated with  various organisation completely halted collection of garbage demanding security for KMC employees.

According to Rabin Man Shrestha, chief of the Environment Division at KMC, the collection of garbage resumed after authorities assured security to KMC employees involved in garbage collection and also provide additional equipments to ease the garbage collection process.

On Sunday, Minister for Federal Affairs and Local Development Prakash Man Singh had also directed the concerned authorities to resolve the ongoing problem halting the garbage collection works.