Residents keep the ‘clean India’ drive going

Sunday morning was not ‘take it easy hours’ for many

Residents of Prashanth Nagar sweeping the streets of Derebail in Mangaluruon Sunday. PHOTO: H.S.MANJUNATH

Sunday mornings are not “take it easy hours” for many residents of Prashant Nagar, Derebail East Ward, here, since a month. The ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’ launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has prompted them to make sweeping the roads of their locality a Sunday affair now.

“When we swept the roads on October 2, we were about eight people. Now we are about 30,” pointed out N.A.L. Rao, a retired bank employee, who now works for a solar company. Men and women start cleaning the roads for about one-and-half hours from 7 a.m. “We missed cleaning roads on one Sunday due to rains,” he said.

Mr. Rao said that sweeping the roads also served as exercise, especially to many senior citizens.

An employee of an insurance company Rohini Sreepada said the residents had launched the locality cleaning drive some four years ago. Somehow it did not last long. Now, the residents have made use of the opportunity to re-launch the drive.

“Why should the Mangalore City Corporation spend lakhs of rupees on solid waste management, if we keep our locality clean? If we keep our wards clean the corporation can minimise the spending on solid waste management. The funds can be used for other purposes,” Ms. Sreepada said.

She said that if people took interest, it was possible to keep wards clean on their own, without depending on the corporation.

Suraj, an employee of a telecom company, said after the residents launched the drive on Sundays, dumping of plastic bags near an apartment complex coming up on the main road at Derebail had reduced. It shows the drive has created some sort of awareness on such dumpers, he said.

S.L. Sreepada, an insurance company employee, said the drive had helped in getting the residents to know each other better. Otherwise many who were busy in their own work did not know each other, he said. On Sunday, they were seen setting fire to dry leaves collected on the roadside.

The residents said since there was no plastic waste, burning was fine. If they left it there, the city corporation workers took some days to shift it there, resulting in it spreading to roads.

The councillor Derebail East Ward K. Rajesh visited the area for sometime, to encourage the drive.