Dhaka: Barely one and a half years ago, a trash bin was installed on the footpath in front of office of Executive Engineer, Mirpur Division of Public Works Department on Darussalam road at Mirpur-1 as part of Dhaka's two city corporations' bid to make the city a clean one.

Visiting the spot recently, the UNB correspondents found no waste bin there, only the iron stand standing for which the footpaths are getting dirty once again as there are two shops, including a tea-stall, on the footpath.

Abdur Rahim along with his friend, Bipul Saha, was taking tea at the tea-stall the other day.  "I used to drop garbage into the bin after its installation here. It was a good decision to improve city's waste management. But one day I found no bin here except the iron-built stand," Rahim told UNB.

"It has been stolen. But I thought the city corporation will replace it with another. But I find no sign yet to replace it," he said.

A few yards away, there is another waste bin which has already got damaged. The bin was squeezed and now can contain little garbage. More importantly, pedestrians were found less interested to drop garbage into the bin for its present shape.

There is another bin on the footpaths in front of Grihayan Bhaban at Segunbagicha under DSCC which got damaged and lost its original shape.

The scenario is not only for those bins, a significant number of bins installed in the areas of two city corporations-Dhaka North City Coporation (DNCC) and Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC)-- either were vanished or got damaged.

Though waste bins found stolen in most of the areas but none of those lost or damaged from Hotel Sheraton (Now Hotel Intercontinental) to Matsya Bhaban via Hear Road which is a regarded as a VIP area.

Last year, the two city corporations installed some 6700 waste bins spending Tk 5.20 crore to improve the city's waste management. Of the bins, 1000 were installed in the DNCC while 5700 in the DSCC areas.

But the efforts of the two city corporations are going in vain as a significant number of bins are either lost or damaged. There is no step seen to replace those while visiting different parts of the city.

According to DNCC officials, 171 bins out of 1000 either stolen or got damaged. Each bin costs Tk 6,400.

According to DSCC officials, some 200 waste bins have been stolen so far and 100-200 got damaged beyond repairable, while 400 others which got damaged are repairable.

Out of 5700 bins, some 1140 are big size ones and 4560 are small ones. The big one costs Tk 12,000 each while the small one costs Tk 6,400 each.

DNCC chief Waste Management officer commodore Abdur Razzak said, "We're now observing the situation. We're yet to replace any waste bin which have been stolen or damaged as we didn't take any decision in this regard. Some people have removed either the bins alone or with the frames and others pest poster on the bins, " he added.

The DNCC is conducting a campaign to raise awareness of the city dwellers so that they use the bins and keep vigil so that no one can remove the bins installed in various parts of the city corporation, said the DNCC officer.

Contacted, DSCC chief Waste Management officer commodore MK Bakhtiar said, "We're replacing the missing and non-repairable bins in phases."