Jammu Jottings
Squadron Leader Anil Sehgal
I am not astonished that Jammu is dotted with old narraow lanes and bylanes ; all old cities are. But, I am dismayed that even in new colonies like Trikuta Nagar, Channi Himmat, Nanak Nagar, the lanes are narrow.
At many places in these colonies, two cars coming from opposite directions, can not pass side by side. Many times, even a single vehicle passes with great difficulty.
The narrow lanes of the city have drains that are open, and uncovered. The drains carry all the filth we create and unmindfully discard in the open.
All this refuse gets collected in the drains, along with plastic waste, because the lanes are not swept and cleared of the refuse lying all around, on a regular basis. Especially, the thin plastic bags block the flow, the drains get choked and start overflowing. Foul smell emanates all around.
Some of the drains are like big nullahs that can swallow a two wheeler. Like the one near the high court of justice.
Each ward of Jammu municipality has a health officer who is a medical professional. Each ward has a corporator too who is an elected representative. Both are responsible to ensure cleanliness of their wards, its lanes, bylanes, drains and roads.
These officers are given a large force of workers to ensure cleanliness in their respective wards and give the residents honourable living conditions with proper sanitation and hygiene.
Unfortunately, these public servants do everything except the duties assigned to them. They donot survey their wards, therefore, they do not know the issues involved. They do not ensure that the large force of workers, including safai karamcharies, actually perform the tasks for which they are paid each month. In short, they fail to utilise the resources at their disposal to achieve the targets of social health.
The result is seen in the dirty lanes, clogged drains and heaps of kachra, that is waste, lying all around.
Recently I sent a WhatsApp message to the concerned medical officer to report that the drains were clogged and overflowing in last morh area of Gandhi Nagar. There was no response to the message, but, thankfully, the overflow was cleared the next day.
What the sanitary workers did was nothing short of a shocker. The muck removed from the drains was kept by the side of the drain itself, thereby making it difficult to pass through the narrow lane ! This muck was not cleared for the next ten days !
The lane corner opposite Shiva Gas is a permanent dumping spot used by the residents. Heaps of refuse adorn it all round the year. It was not cleared even once during September 2022 to January 2023, the four months plus period I stayed in Jammu !
By and large, this is the story of each and every ward of Jammu municipality. I have cited just one example to bring home my point.
I also visited the Nanak Nagar gurudwara to offer my prayers. The gurudwara premises, as expected, is maintained spick and span. So is the charitable medical facility they have created at the back of the gurudwara. But, as I started waking out of the exit gate of this facility, I found an open nullah full of muck, giving out foul smell. This nullah is wide enough to accept a small car !
We all know who is guilty of this filthy open nullah, just behind a sacred place. It is not the doing of the gurudwara management. But, a small and persistent pressure from them on the responsible municipal personnel will certainly produce fast results. We all know how religion rules supreme in our social psyche.
If our residents assert themselves, most of the civic problems related to sanitation and hygiene can be sorted out. Only the willingness to act as a united community is sadly missing.
Jammu is one of the cities of our country that has been included in the list of cities to be given the facilities of a smart city. I wonder if proper sanitation is a part of the improvement plan.
How can we call a city smart if it does not have a proper sanitary system, clean roads, lanes and bylanes, unclogged drains that are covered, and a large number of dustbins well distributed across the city ?
May I call upon all ward medical officers and the corporators to come out of their comfort zones and inspect their wards every day ?
Sir, I implore you to meet the residents of your ward, at least once a week, and interact with them to understand their difficulties and address the persistent problems of your wards.
Please make sure your safai karamcharies perform their duties well by sweeping the roads, lanes and bylanes, and clearing the muck, thus taken out from the drains, from the shoulders of the drains.
Dear Ward officers, please provide big covered containers at the sites of all the dump yards ( read spots ) so that the residents can put the waste into them and not dump the refuse in the open.
Please ensure these big covered containers you eventually place, are emptied everyday by the sanitary workers. Also, kindly provide large number of dust bins all across the city so that the citizens can use these to put in the waste materials.
You provide world class civic facilities to your citizens. The citizens will eventually learn to use them and keep the environment clean.
Look at the metros running in Kolkata and Mumbai. The government has provided the citizens good air conditioned mode of rapid transportstion, and the citizens have learnt to keep thes metros spick and span. There are no spots of paan spits in the metro that you witness on the streets of Kolkata.
Let us not forget that public funds are being paid out every month by way of salaries to the safai karamcharies, sanitary inspectors and the medical officers in each ward. It is, therefore, incumbent upon these salaried officers to dicharge their expected duties well.
If these municipal officers fail to perform as expected, it is the duty of all residents and the citizens of the city to pull them up.
Remember, your government spends crores of rupees each month to give you civic facilities through your municipality and her appointed officers. You are duty bound to ensure that these public funds’ expenditure produces desired facilities.
You have a right to live in a clean environment and enjoy hygienic living conditions. If these officers donot perform their duties, you must protest as an aware citizen, against their nonchalance and adopt all fair and legal means to make them perform. But, under all conditions, perform they must.
If need be, please catch hold of these public servants in their pants. Gherao them, if required. Use Gandhian means like satyagraha and fasting outside the ward offices. Remember, you have nothing to lose except your lethargy and nonchalance !
Come what may, please maintain the sanctity of the sacred city you live in, the City of Temples!
My dear fellow citizens, you will get a clean environment, if you ask for it. Many times, simple asking may not help. Therefore, be persistent. Remember, perseverance is a great asset to succeed in all human endeavours.
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