In the early hours of a Sunday, a group of youngsters with brooms and shovels in hand march towards a corner of MVP Colony that is strewn with garbage. Wearing masks, the team gets down to the job as soon as they reach their target spot. A silent two hours of cleaning later, the spot gets a complete makeover. And the team disappears mysteriously to search for their next spot.
Inspired by the initiative of ‘spot-fix’ started by a Bangalore-based group called The Ugly Indian, groups of youngsters in the city have taken up the responsibility of transforming a littered place within a matter of a couple of hours.
The concept is to be an anonymous citizen initiative that works towards cleaning urban spaces buried in garbage. So when MetroPlus tried to contact the groups, they insisted on keeping their identity undisclosed. “We are here to create a clean living space and remove the local apathy towards civic issues. We are not doing this for publicity or media attention. But the final goal is to ensure that our public places are kept clean,” said one of the volunteers.
There are at least two such student groups in the city working on the lines of The Ugly Indian concept. One of them called KICS (Keep It Clean Stupid) comprises members who are all students from various colleges in the city. Working under the cloak of anonymity, KICS accepts no external funding and raises the funds for their initiative from among its own members. “We have a Whatsapp group in which we inform the members about the upcoming spot-fix with details of the location and timing. The location is identified by a team of four members who go around the city on Friday and Saturdays and zero in on a few localities that need attention and immediate measures. After discussions on the Whatsapp group, we finalise the place,” says a member of KICS.
The team that has 12 active members has already done three spot fixes in a span of a month. Recently, KICS fixed the bus stop opposite to Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) and the auto stand opposite to Varun Inox Theatre. “These are the busy places in the city where many commuters alight. But we observed that the place remained soiled due to ugly posters and urination. We painted the place, put sanitary disinfectants and cleaned the walls. After that we have been monitoring both the spots and these have been our success stories so far,” the KICS team says.
Even as the young members go around the city transforming every locality in the best possible way to create a city of their dreams, they know it is an uphill task ahead. “Any result in the public space needs to be supported by the people. For instance, we had cleaned up the place on the Beach Road opposite Novotel Hotel and placed 12 dustbins. A few weeks have gone by and now there are just six of them left. These small setbacks will not deter us. We will continue with our mission of a clean city. But public support is equally needed,” says the young team members of Young India Fraternity, the other group working on the same concept.
Such initiatives, originating from the lanes of Bangalore have spread across other cities like Chennai, Mumbai and Goa too fast turning into a big citizen initiative. “We regularly receive many requests on our Facebook page from Vizagites who want to join us. But right now we want to restrict the team size to 15 so that we can monitor the work effectively,” says members of KICS. The organisation has also approached the GVMC officials for support. As they gear up for their fourth spot-fix, this time they will be accompanied by a sanitary in-charge worker of GVMC who would assist them to dispose the garbage.
