शुक्रवार, 20 नवंबर 2015

SWACHH BHARAT

SWACHH BHARAT

During my service period about 15 years back I have constructed a house in a remote locality with my house being the last one in the row. A couple of plots were vacant even before my house in the row.
Front row had only a corner house. For all practical purposes my house was the last house in the area and I was fearing for any theft may take place in my house. God Bless nothing of that sort has happened in the past.
Now that I am retired and landed to the same house for settling, as is expected entire row is packed by houses except one in a row in front and at the back. My house now needs quite a good attention, calls for repairs of developed cracks and choked drains. Added to it naturally this calls for a good white/ color washing of a modern type.
During my service I had quite a good opportunity to travel across the length and breadth of this country. During the period I have visited almost all the metro cities and many a capitals of Indian states. The common points worth noting were multistoried concrete jungles – retraining the sunshine to fall on the earth. Many a localities will have dark rooms in the houses even day time and they need lights on for any work to be carried out. Heavy traffic movement in cities is mostly disciplined to quite some extant on the main roads. The vehicles move bumper to bumper in a way that even at 40-60 kmph speed no vehicle hits another one. No arbitrary lane changing and U turns is beauty of the traffic. Probably ever commuter knows if I fail to observe rules someday I myself may land into issues.
Next major issue is Garbage Management. I have seen Garbage collecting vans on the roads – may be they collect garbage from destined bins places at some decided locations as House hold ladies and maids have been noted with their garbage bags / bins and decanting them in the garbage dumps. These dumps do stink and cause issues of mosquito etc in the vicinity but never heard of any complaints from the residents. Many of the high rise buildings have Garbage chutes wherein residents can dump the garbage in the bags and then it is carried away periodically by municipality vans vacating the chutes for the further usage.
In some cities there are garbage collectors, who collect the garbage from house to house and dispose it off into larger bins of may be to municipal vans. These collector are mostly contract labourers and are paid meagerly. Therefore quite many times they demand a monthly payment arbitrarily from residents and even residents happily part with that little sum for the benefit they reap in lieu of it.  
The beautiful thing I have noted is that as in every field in this field also there are persons who want to avoid/ save even that small sum and find alternate ways to resolve.
1.   Add garbage to others garbage in their bin with or without sharing the expenses – with or without the info to the bin owner.
2.   Dispose the garbage in streets opposite to the house or throw it right down to ground from any of the floor without bothering the concern caused to other resident in the building and in the nearby areas where the    garbage is disposed.
3.   Use the neighbouring vacant plots as garbage dumping yard. Normally owners of vacant plots do not stay nearby and are unable to observe the menace caused. Therefore this becomes a convenient way to handle the garbage. 
Owners of such vacant plots are mostly rich and invest into plots for rich dividends later. Therefore they never bother about the plot and its condition for years together and whenever they visit there, they never bother to meet the neighbours for knowing if there is any valuable info affecting them. They even do not bother to clear shrubs and garbage from their plot as it hardly effect them.
Residents in the vicinity face the furor of various diseases, mosquito menace and also variety of unhygienic conditions but never think that this is because of their  own carelessness and dropping the garbage into the nearby vacant plot where the insects called bacteria brew.
If there is someone who realizes the root cause of the problem and raises the voice against such bad practices he / she is stamped bad soul and residents start criticising. Therefore in order to avoid unwanted tussle no body speaks against such ill habits. 
The person or group of persons affected most by the menace will burn the garbage one day to do away with the menace. This ion turn creates smoke pollution and the air gets polluted. The infants and older ones have their bit of bad experience and the asthmatic people suffer the maximum. Those who leave the area for their office/ shops or business get rid of the smoke pollution leaving behind their bit also for the members who stay back at home.
People demand tolerance here but if tolerated the situation gets aggravated and repeats rather frequently. It is better that the car is taken at the first instant itself. This is observed in almost all the cities without any exception.
I m yet tio come across a situation where in this problem is attempted to be addressed and hence the menace continues unabated.
In such situations the municipality should observe the strictness and penalize the owner of the plot for not maintaining hygiene in the area. One must take care of cleanliness of the plot by himself visiting periodically or engaging someone and entrusting the work at the terms they decide. Owner must be made responsible for the neatness there.
Here the residents associations and local can assist the municipality by observing strictness in their area. They as a body may take responsibility of maintaining the vacant plot clear of garbage and bushes by periodically having the cleaning drive at some cost to owner, who may be happy to bear the expenses. 
Though the issue is very important otherwise also  but with the present standing call of Swachh Bharat programme for which Government has recently started levying tax also, it needs more and more attention of all those who are affected, who have responsibility of managing the garbage and plot owners who have a responsibility towards the society.
Let us all join hands and keep selves neat - clean and healthy.

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