The rear side of Feroze Gandhi Market on Pakhowal Road has become a years-long open garbage dumping yard due to inaction by local civic bodies. The authorities have not addressed the waste management issue at the location.The rear portion of Feroze Gandhi Market that has been turned into a dumping ground. (Gurpreet Singh/HT)Municipal corporation (MC) commissioner Ojasvi Aankar said “This fell under the jurisdiction of the Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority (GLADA).” He said that he will talk to the concerned GLADA officials for immediate action on the matter.Additional chief administrator, GLADA, Vikas Hira, said, “We are in the process of issuing a work order to clean it.” He said that there will be a visible difference in a week.He also issued an appeal to the public not to litter public spaces.Former minister and Congress member of legislative assembly (MLA) and councillor Bharat Bhushan Ashu, who lives close to the market, said that the dump reflected a complete collapse of the sanitation system in the city.“This is obviously visible as it is just behind a popular market, but this is pretty much the situation across the city. There is no system to clear the garbage. This used to be empty space, which also came in handy for parking in the area just 4-5 years ago. Now it appears to have become a dump,” he said.The former minister also noted that the situation of the place has been the same for 3-4 years now, but there hasn’t been even any public outcry about the open garbage dump just beside a posh market.RTI (Right to Information) activist Arvind Sharma said that the garbage showed a total failure of urban management.“This is not some periphery of the city we are talking about. It is less than a kilometre from the deputy commissioner’s office and the Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT) office. It is not possible that the MC/GLADA officials don’t drive past this every week. But there seems to be no will to clean the city,” he said.This comes as the Punjab government has started a ‘Mission Clean Punjab’ initiative to clean the state, and the civic body officials have been claiming to actively clear up the city.