Is This Swaccha Mluru? Voting Day Off Taken by Pourakarmikas Leaves City Trashed
Is This Swaccha Mangaluru? Voting Day Off Taken by Pourakarmikas of Antony Waste Handling Cell Pvt Ltd Leaves City Trashed the next Day, with piles of garbage seen at various spots.
Mangaluru: Talk about Swaccha Mangaluru- but it looks like its NOT happening at all. I really don’t understand the concept of Swaccha Bharath Abhiyan, the way garbage is scattered all over the city every single day. Citizens think that they can throw garbage, and when its clean by others, that’s what Swaccha Abhiyan is for them, I guess. That’s not right. When you talk about Swaccha Mangaluru/Swaccha Bharath Abhiyan there should not be any garbage at all on the streets. Every Sunday, volunteers of Ramakrishna Mission do a great job in cleaning the streets and gutters of Mangaluru- and within a few days the same spots are littered again. How ignorant could our Mangaloreans be? Is this the Swacch Mangaluru we are looking for?
On Saturday, a certain part of the team of Pourakarmikas of Antony Waste Handling Cell Pvt Ltd, a company that hauls garbage for Mangaluru City Corporation took a day off to exercise their franchise- guess, what was the outcome next day! On Sunday morning, a huge pile of garbage was seen at various places in the City. Imagine what would happen, if Pourakarmikas take two days or go on a strike for few days- the City will be a just another dump yard like Pachchanady dumping yard – where the city’s garbage is dumped.
We should not blame the Pourakarmikas for all this garbage, instead blame the citizens for creating it. On the first place, why is garbage still seen on the city roads? Aren’t the garbage hauling company workers suppose to pick it up from the homes or businesses. Why is MCC not taking action against people dumping garbage on the roadside. I am surprise, the way the garbage is seen daily on the City, its hard to believe how Mangaluru was judged one of the cleanest city in the Nation. Next time these judging officials come to Mangaluru to check on the cleanliness of Mangaluru, I will show them the places where actually the piles of trashes are.
Despite the hype around the cleanliness drive after Prime Minister’s clarion call for Swaccha Bharath Abhiyan, filth is still visible on many of our roads. With the dumping of garbage on every nook and corner of the city, many a time people using the roads are put to inconvenience by the stench that emanates from the garbage dumped indiscriminately. In spite of awareness on why use of plastic should be avoided, people continue to use plastics. It forms a major chunk of the garbage dumped along the roads. Even though Good Samaritans associated with Ramakrishna Mission, and also NGO and other social organizations have been doing a massive clean up work, but unfortunately people are still ignorant in littering waste all around.
In conclusion, Yes, we agree that disposal of garbage continues to be a challenge faced by the civic authorities. Officials say that they alone can not keep the city clean. A change in attitude among people towards the issue of cleanliness is need of hour. In spite of many awareness programmes on ‘Swachh Bharath’ people have the habit of dumping garbage on the streets and pavements. Adding to this, construction debris is also dumped. Also looking at the outgrown grass and other vegetation beside these city outskirts roads, it seems like Swachh Bharath Abhiyan is not making up to the mark. At a few places people have recklessly thrown garbage into the drain along the roads. As a result, the drain is clogged and garbage is strewn around.
So what kind of solutions can MCC come up with to prevent garbage being dumped on the road sides? Severe fines imposed on those littering garbage is one solution- but who is going to keep an eye on these litterers. With this kind of attitude and ignorance by Citizens of Mangaluru, it would be a long way before Mangaluru becomes CLEAN and GREEN?
