On Gandhi Jayanti and the fourth anniversary of launch of PM’s Narendra Modi’s much publicised ‘Swachchhta Abhiyan,’ Free Press found that residents of the country’s second cleanest city are living up to its tag. A tour to Suruchi Nagar, Vaishali Nagar, Nivesh Nagar and Riviera Towne is enough to bring to fore the efforts made in cleanliness scenario.
The four major localities in the city are much cleaner than they once were and the credit for it goes entirely to the residents of the colonies. Claiming that they have been doing their bit, the denizens complained that government agencies failed to do their job as far as sanitation goes. A social activist Sunil Dubey ‘Vrikshamitra’ a resident of Suruchi Nagar told Free Press, “We have been running cleanliness campaign in the colony since 2008 without the help of Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC).
In fact, we pay Rs 9000 per month for cleanliness. There is one sweeper in our colony and he his work at 4.30 am daily. After sweeping, he collects garbage and dumps it in garbage van. And till 12pm, all the cleanliness works is completed here.” Dubey further informed, “Earlier, maids of our colony used to throw garbage near roadsides. All our effort to make them understand yielded no result.
Then I got the place cleaned where they used to throw garbage by deploying three sweepers for almost three months but it dint affect them. One day, we pasted a banner at the place in which wrote ‘Bhootnath’ and disseminated a message that if a person throws garbage here it will affect the health of their family members especially husband and children. The trick worked and the maids stopped throwing garbage there.”
“We have done many other things like holding meetings with residents and organising other activities time to time to aware them towards maintaining cleanliness in the colony. Now, the residents of the colony are taking interest in it. There are 108 homes, and nearly 2000 people live in the colony.” Besides, Dubey also supervised all the three colonies. He said that Ajay Verma, owner of Ajay Pharma and residents of Nivesh Nagar spends Rs 4000 per month to maintain cleanliness in their colony.
Similarly, secretary of Riviera Towne, Rajendra Chowkse said, “There are 325 homes in our two-phased colonies. And we use deposit money of the society to maintain cleanliness. We hire private agency for cleanliness work. We also organise ‘Swachhta Abhiyan’ on Gandhi Jayanti to aware the people towards cleanliness. We do voluntary works for this.”
“I think, municipal corporation and police create are responsible for filth as they are giving permissions for running paan shops and allowing other vendors to operate on footpath. Basically, our government is corrupt. They are misusing Gandhiji’s name,” Chowkse said. President of Vaishali Nagar, G P Upadhyay said, “The maintenance cell, set up in 1980 looks after the cleanliness work in our society. There are 143 homes in our society and nearly 1400 people live here. We take Rs 300 to 400 per month from them for maintenance including cleanliness, water and electricity.”
“We hold executive meeting and call ‘Aam Sabha’ once a year and release circular to maintain cleanliness. We also organise awareness programme time to time. There has been 60 % improvement in context of cleanliness. We do 50% cleanliness works ourselves. If required we take help of BMC,” Upadhaya added.
