After garlanding a garbage collection vehicle, a DMK councillor of Tirunelveli Corporation staged a dharna at the urban civic body’s administrative office here on Tuesday in protest against poor civic operations in his ward with more than 200 streets.

Accompanied by a group of people from Ward 5 of the Corporation, DMK councillor Jeganathan garlanded a broken-down garbage collection vehicle standing on the Corporation premises and sat on the ground along with the public near the main entrance of the local body for a while in a bid to highlight the poor sanitary operations in his ward.

In the petition later submitted to Deputy Mayor K.R. Raju, Mr. Jeganathan said the Corporation had allotted only 15 sanitary workers to his ward with more than 200 streets and only 10 of them report for duty everyday while others take leave on turn basis. Consequently, most of the streets of Ward 5 remain in nauseating condition.

“Protesting it, I started revolting against the Corporation administration, which sanctioned seven more sanitary workers to clean the clogged drainage channels. However, they have been shifted to some other ward following instruction from a senior Corporation official to leave my ward in disgusting state with the sewage overflowing from the almost filled-up drainage channels,” Mr. Jeganathan charged.

He also said one of the broke-down electric garbage collection vehicles used in Ward 5 was yet to be repaired.

“If the Corporation still adamantly refuses to sanction more personnel and vehicles for sanitary operations in Ward 5, the residents will start indefinite agitation against the urban civic body, which is collecting property, water and solid waste management taxes from us,” Mr. Jeganathan said.

Councillor Kandan of Ward 11 submitted a petition to replace the 60-year-old drinking water pipes in Vannarpet Vinayagar Temple Street as sewage was mixing up with the drinking water through the fractures in the pipes.

Another petition was submitted by the residents of Abdul Rahman Muthalaali Nagar under Ward 38 seeking regular and sufficient drinking water supply after replacing the damaged drinking water distribution pipes with new pipes.