Swachh Bharath Abuse! This Is What Kudla Looks Like Early Morning Every Day

Swachh Bharath Abuse! This Is What Kudla Looks Like Early Morning Every Day

“Hundreds of citizens holding brooms and sweeping the streets will not solve the Swachh Bharath issue. Reduce of wastage should start from the household itself. Residents should learn how to reduce waste and also try to recycle as much as they can. Citizens should keep their surroundings clean just like their homes, and also not litter everywhere just because there are pourakarmikas to do the cleaning job. Everyone should use their common sense when it comes to cleanliness, only then PM Modi’s dream of Swachh Bharat will be a success” said Deputy Commissioner of DK, Sasikanth Senthil IAS during an interactive meeting organized by Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry recently.

Mangaluru: If you wake up in the morning before 6-6.30 am, and take a drive or stroll around the Mangaluru City, you’ll be surprised to see the amount of garbage that is scattered all over- a clear picture of Swachh Bharath/Swachh Mangaluru Abuse? Garbage left behind by street vendors, pedestrians, commuters waiting at bus stops and so on- and the poor Pourakarmikas of Antony Waste Management have to bear the brunt and do the cleaning left for them by ignorant people. But why City has to clean the garbage left behind by street vendors, where many of them are from out of town, who don’t even pay taxes or any fees? Bah humbug!

Garbage dumped by ‘Rich People’ in front of Natural Ice cream Parlour Kadri

Mangaluru, which was ranked third in a list of cleanest cities in India under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan back in 2015, has been ranked a distant 63 in 2017. It did not find a place in the 73 cities ranked in the Swacch Sarvekshan list last year either. You know why? The following pictures will reveal the story. On 2 October 2014, , just months into his job as prime minister, Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Mission, the most ambitious cleanliness campaign in Indian history. Not by coincidence, this was the very date of the birth anniversary of Mohandas Gandhi. Modi, in dramatic style, appeared before a battery of cameras to sweep the courtyard of a police station in a Dalit residential colony in central Delhi. “A clean India would be the best tribute India could pay to Mahatma Gandhi on his one-hundred-and-fiftieth birth anniversary in 2019,” he said, promising to transform sanitation and waste-management in the country by that day.

Since the launch, Modi has put enormous effort into making the Swachh Bharat Mission a flagship programme of his rule. In the third year since its launch, PN’s initiative has been carried forward and promoted by various organizations, Education Institutions, Religious Institutions, Ashrams/Maths- and locally here Mangaluru, RamaKrishna Mission has played an vital role in the Swachh Bharath/Swachh Mangaluru Abhiyan- since 2015, and they are on their 4th Phase of this Campaign, with determination and commitment to make Mangaluru Cleaner than it was in the past years. But it is also the responsibility of the people to appreciate what Ramakrishna Math volunteers are doing, by not littering the same place which was cleaned by these volunteers.

And sadly this is taking place every single day in Mangaluru, even in spite of many awareness programmes and motivation, that people are still abusing the concept of Swachh by dirtying the city. The idea behind Swachh Bharath is to motivate people not to litter, but it is happening the other way- where people are very much creating a mess everywhere with an impression that someone else will clean their mess, and make the city look clean. But sadly, the citizens of Mangaluru seems like they are are not appreciating the cleanliness done and also the awareness on Clean environment being spread by Ramakrishna Math and the volunteers who are associated with the Math. Since two and half years, after RamaKrishna Mission took the initiative of making Mangaluru a Clean City, they have given this City an “EXTREME MAKEOVER” in many areas of the City, either by painting dilapidated bus shelters/walls/street signs etc etc; sweeping streets; cleaning garbage; pulling out grown weeds/grass etc- but once this campaign of RamaKrishna Math ceases at the end of the year’s project- we see garbage, painted walls being spoiled with paan spit; or posters being pasted on the walls etc. But why are people of Mangaluru so IGNORANT?

It is not just the uneducated people who abuse swachh Bharath, even many educated citizens litter wherever they want- for example every night rich and educated people who come by high-end cars like Audi, Mercedes, BMW and also Indian made cars to feast on Ice Cream at Naturals’s Ice Cream near Kadri Pumpwell-Kadri road-dump all their wastage along the side of the street (see pics) -they booze and eat at fast food and later discard all the garbage across from the Ice Cream parlour. Is this what rich and educated are up to- shame on them? Period.

In conclusion, even though with PM Modi and his government launching a mission called, “Swachh Bharat”, where our PM took broom for seconds, so did big people who would never know how to catch a broom in a lifetime- and even though the Swamis and Volunteers of RamaKrishna Math and other social organizations undertaking the cleanliness campaign- some of Kudla roads are DIRTY again. But on the other hand, if the streets are dirty again, there are reasons, one of them- there aren’t enough garbage bins to throw garbage, and worse, no public toilets, and then you are forced to dirty up the place, it could be citizens mistake, and in the same time, government’s and MCC’s too for not providing better facilities.

We need more than some media campaign, we need some real groundwork being done from government and MCC. You want me to not litter, well then provide me garbage bins, you don’t want me to pee on the roadside, well have public toilets installed etc etc. Well, while certain organizations are trying to keep city clean, the government and especially MCC should also cooperate in providing enough dustbins/garbage bins and also enough toilets. The govt officials should also join hands with the volunteers and note how the Swacch Bharath/Swachh Mangaluru campaign is progressing. Hoping to see Mangaluru cleaner than it was few days ago?

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