Clean Mumbai Green Mumbai

I grabbed a frappe at Churchgate station in the scorching heat of Mumbai and headed to board the local to Santacruz. After I was done with my coffee, I looked for a dustbin at Churchgate station, but sadly, I couldn’t find one. I then held on to the paper glass, resolving to put it in the bin after alighting at Santacruz. There was no waste paper basket in sight in Santacruz station either. Don’t worry, I told myself, there is a long stretch of skywalk to negotiate on the way to the main road, it will most definitely have a series of dustbins lined up. And I distinctively remembered the innumerable campaigns undertaken by the Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation to promote the idea of a clean city. Satisfied, I started towards the skywalk. If you call heaps of garbage garnished with the distinct red paan spit a dustbin, both the sides of the skywalk were by default dustbins. At least that’s what the common man had assumed. I was very frustrated by then and lost all hope from the skywalk – there was not a single dustbin in view. All the installed ones had either been removed or stolen. I was extremely tempted to put my paper glass onto the heap of garbage. No, I told myself, this is the kind of mentality I want to change; I will not yield to this temptation. I got off the skywalk and decided to drop it in the next bin on the road I see. Alas, there was none in sight. I finally reached home and put the glass in my dust bin. I’m sure that anyone else with lesser patience would have just littered, cursing the authorities.

Really sorry state of affairs. The government is trying its best to upgrade infrastructure levels in the country, but even the best infrastructure when not used well gets dilapidated very soon. The very recent skywalk looked very shabby and presented a very sorry sight. Littering is a habit with most Indians and the authorities should assume that people will litter as the norm rather than the exception. If they want people to stop littering, the enforcement must be effective as without a punishment for breaking the laws, the law is highly ineffective. And, for starters, they must install bins at regular intervals, so that people who do not intend to litter have a place to put their waste in. Also, the bins must be such that they cannot be removed or stolen. The problems are well known, it is high time to stop cribbing and take action- work around the problem. Just making slogans is not enough, implementation is the key.