Throughout the embankment from Amin Bazar to Babu Bazar, where thousands of households are situated, the environment has become unbearable with stench emitted by piles of rubbish and pollution caused due to the illegal dumping.

Local people said that DCC's drivers and workers who are everyday engaged in collecting and dumping rubbish 'sell' the garbage to plot owners who choose the cheapest way of filling up their sites by rubbish.

"For each truck of rubbish dumped for filling up a low-lying plot the driver gets TK 50 while the workers share the remaining Tk 50," said Wadud Mia a day labourer in Rayer Bazar area who also works part time with DCC garbage trucks.

"If the plot owner fills up the plot with sand it would cost him over Tk 1,000 per truck load of sand," Wadud added.

Field level DCC officials, who are responsible for monitoring collection and dumping of rubbish, said that they are unable to track down the culprits. But at around 6-30 am yesterday this correspondent found several trucks dumping rubbish on a plot near Kamrangirchar. Another truck was found near Basila road dumping rubbish.

DCC now has two designated dumping sites in the city. One is at Amin Bazar where about 30 percent of total rubbish collected is dumped. The remaining 70 percent rubbish is dumped at Mutwail. The city generates over 4,000 metric tons of rubbish every day and the DCC, with severe constraints in transports and manpower, is able to remove only 30 percent of the rubbish.

The Chief Conservancy Officer of the DCC Commander MR Chowdhury said that they are concerned about the problem of dumping rubbish indiscriminately.

"We are trying to catch the culprits and we will take exemplary action against these people," Chowdhury said.