The Guwahati Municipal Corporation has cleared about 80 per cent of public property damaged in the arson that took place during the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, with special passes for its personnel involved in the work.

GMC commissioner Debeswar Malakar said with a limited amount of workers and garbage-disposal vehicles, priority was given to clearing the debris caused by the protest here.

Around 90 NGOs empanelled with the GMC have been entrusted with the responsibility of clearing the roads.

The workers, issued special passes with the district administration, have been working since the last three days from 3am every day.

They cleared a huge stretch of iron railings that had been uprooted by protesters along GS Road, under the strict vigilance of a team comprising Malakar, additional commissioners, along with six divisional engineers.

Apart from the iron railings, burnt tyres, flowerpots and broken glasses from the damaged vehicles were swept off the streets.

“During the protest, three compactors (garbage-carrying vehicles) were slightly damaged by the protesters. We cleared the PWD railings too,” said Malakar.

“Approximately, around 80 per cent of the damaged infrastructure, covering the inner bylanes and main roads here, has been cleared and work is still going on,” said GMC divisional engineer Gautam Das.

Work is pending in some far-flung places like the Narengi-Chandrapur area, as workers and vehicles are limited.

“We are trying our best to reach those locations as soon as possible after clearing up the main city roads,” he added.

The GMC has instructed the NGOs that as normality slowly returns, cleaning work and crisis management must go hand in hand. It also resumed the daily process of door-to-door garbage collection from Sunday.

Household garbage was cleared after a backlog of more than five to six days.

“The unrest prevailing in the city had prevented the normal work of the GMC to a large extent,” Malakar said.

Clearing work has also begun near the open area dumping ground in Fancy Bazar since Sunday.

“We have installed three municipal garbage bins in the jail point area and have urged the market complexes nearby, which has vegetable markets, to dump the daily waste of perishable goods in the bins only. In the last four to five days, we have seen that the market peddlers and shops have maintained the same regulations.” Das added.

The GMC is also searching for extra workers at the moment but hardly any are to be found.