Babus and Netas often complain that our citizens do not have any 'civic sense' and that we have created the
infrastructure but people do not take care of it. This is a half-truth. We often
do not have governing mechanisms in place to take care of our urban infrastructure
on everyday basis.
Lets take an example of littering on the streets and the ‘Clean India Campaign’ or ‘Swachchh Bharat Abhiyaan’ of the
Government of India. During the launch of the campaign we were reminded of our
crucial role and a lot of people picked up a broom to ‘Clean India’. What is
missing now? When a citizen, inspired by the high morale of the ‘Clean India
campaign’, looks for a dustbin to throw garbage, it is the job of the city
government to make sure that the dustbin is in its place. When a dustbin is in
place, it is more effective to tell the citizen to use it. Citizens can
exercise their ‘civic sense’ of not littering only when the government is doing
its job of putting the dustbins in place. Here, the 'dustbin' is just a symbol
of the solid waste management and public sanitation system of the city.
One of the objectives of the Clean India campaign is 100% collection and scientific disposal and recycling of municipal
solid waste. In most of our cities, the
solid waste management and public sanitation is in shambles, especially in the
public spaces. In many less-privileged parts of Ahmedabad streets are not
cleaned regularly. In the more-privileged parts where they are cleaned
regularly, the garbage is burnt openly. Open burning of street waste is
practiced widely in Ahmedabad – sometimes right in front of the municipal
officials’ residences. Open burning of waste generates toxic fumes that are
harmful for human bodies. Generally the waste is burnt in the morning hours,
which coupled with the emissions from the morning peak hours of traffic creates
deadly air that all the commuters breath while going to work.
It has been six months since the ‘Clean India campaign’ was launched but we have not seen many changes on the ground
level. The campaign also rightfully stresses on public sanitation and building
of toilets in every house in the country. How is our municipal corporation
going to ensure that toilets will be built in every house whether they are in
slums or elsewhere? Public toilets are generally not built (especially for
women) and when built, they are not maintained properly. As citizens, we
understand that it is a mammoth task to clean our cities. But did this campaign
inspire or shake up our governing agencies to change their ways and becoming serious
about cleaning our cities?
There are two important duties of
being a citizen in a democracy. We are often made guilty of the first one of
not exercising ‘civic sense’. But we completely overlook the other one – making
the democratic government accountable. It is time we start making our (local)
government accountable for ‘Clean India’ before we get gyan on improving our civic sense.
(
27th April, 2015: DNA Ahmedabad edition, Cities Supplement, Page 5)
