Swachh Jammu

S M Shridhar
When the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs ordered Swachh Survekshan 2018 as part of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan to assess the sanitation and cleanliness level for 500 cities, taking Jammu in its fold, our lovable Jammu went into deep and worried introspection. The main cause for the worry was: where would I stand among the 500 contestants.
However, there was, as such, no reason to worry given the colossal declarations by the authorities about the measures taken to meet the standards laid down by the Ministry for Swachh Bharat Mission.
Therefore, Jammu had an incontrovertible reason to acquiesce, based on the pompous premise of the authorities, that the city will infallibly secure number ‘1’ rank in the contest. Ah! Our Jammu did get number ‘1’ rank but unfortunately surrounded by number ‘2’ on both sides. As a matter of fact, Jammu stood at 212 rank in the contest among 500 contestants. Come 2019 , Jammu plummeted further to disgusting 329 rank (out of 425 contestants). This perturbing rank is a source of alarm for every Jammuite .
We all need to own up to our part of share for our city’s dismal rank. Ref : Swachhta : Everyone’s Responsibility
The ‘ Swachh Sarvekshan ’ is conducted by ‘ Quality Council of India ’
(QCI) involving three streams of data collection:
* Interaction with municipal body,
* Direct observation and
* Citizens feedback.
The evaluation is carried out on the following five key thematic parameters
to rank the cities as shown below :
* Municipal solid waste (Sweeping, Collection and Transportation /
Processing and Disposal)
* Strategy for Open Defecation Free Town (ODF)
* Capacity building and e-learning
* Provision of public and community toilet seats
* Information, Education and Behavior Change
Communication (IEBC)
Ref : List Of Cleanest Cities in India
Let us begin with the basic activity for cleanliness and sanitation :
Sweeping . The sweeping is only a follow up action to the source of garbage caused through littering, animal discharge, foliage falling etc. Like charity, the cleanliness too begins at home. Let’s ask ourselves. Do we ever litter at home, do we ever let our pet, pee or poo, inside the drawing room, do we indulge in spitting, left and right, in our home ? No, never! Are we fools? Yes, definitely, we are not! So dear Jammuites, why this foolery and freedom in the streets and roads. So, no littering whatsoever. Even the smallest piece of garbage be put in the trash box; no spitting at all. And strictly no pet poo in the streets or roads. I cannot resist to tell that during a walk in a park in a country from the west, I saw a beautiful blonde young girl, out walking her pet in the park had it, that the pet defecated on the grass out lawn and she immediately drew out a polythene cover from her pocket, picked the poo and put that down into the nearby trashbox. This is a general social habit over there.
Ref : Effort that everyone needs to own Daily sweeping of the streets and roads with door to door pick up or self dropping to the trash containers and the fixed time shifting of the trash containers is all about the ground cleanliness. The trash containers need to have flap lids only to avoid stink emission and also the user’s facility to drop the pick without touching and not throwing their pick from a distance which invariably falls outside. This is a tangible fact that there is no dearth of the field staff with the agency but only the need for discreet deployment, devotion and delivery is the call of the day. People’s participation is paramount. The unauthorised trespassed permanent parking of light vehicles on the roads and streets and the extended shop areas in the market is a menacing deterrent for delivery of the service. The visible fallout is that the roads and streets are sweeped ornamentally and the drains skip cleaning because of back to back parked vehicles.The vehicles leave at their own time leaving the dirt left behind posing problem for the pedestrians. The drains in the busy market place have, preserved inside them, age old muck, stinking eternally with no remedy whatsoever.
Unending scarce water supply in Jammu city is another factor for the choked drains. An effective law and its strict enforcement is the need to regulate unauthorised parking on the streets and roads. Parking should be in the designated parking lot only. All in all, once a week, the air pressure and vacuum suction cleaning can make Jammu dust free.
The solid waste so collected is for processing and final disposal. The aim of the disposal is to extract the maximum practical benefits from the segregated solid waste leading to minimum amount of end product. This can be achieved by adopting the globally accepted ‘3 R’ principle:
Reduce , Reuse , Recycle. The first is to promote measures to prevent the generation of the waste. The second action is to put the generated waste to the preferred alternatives for its reuse. And the third action is recycling by composting which lead to generation of energy from waste, therefore, beginning with the waste and ending with energy. The final action is the disposal of the ultimate waste by landfilling or incineration.
Ref : The 3 Rs : Reduce, Reuse, Recycle There are numerous eportals on the internet which can serve as a guide to create an effective and efficacious roadmap to follow for the agencies entrusted with the Swachhta Abhiyan. We can harness the social networking media such as twitter, facebook, instagram and even widely used whatsapp to create awareness among the citizens through elearning.
Our local electronic and print media are excellent means of outreach to invoke people’s participation in the Swachhta Mission. The school authorities for the students, parents for the offsprings and resident welfare associations (RWA) for the residents can best use their abilities to inculcate the habit to maintain cleanliness. Students volunteer groups, RWAs, Government agencies, religious places, citizens, NGOs, Nukkad performers can join hands to convene periodical events in this exercise. It is wisely said that if everyone resolves to keep the outside area of his/her house clean, then the entire city would be clean. It is no mentioning here that the ‘ Kumbh Mela ’ popular for centuries generally for ‘Sangam Sanaan,’ was hitting the international headlines for ‘ Swachhta Completeness ,’ having provided dust free roads and 1,20,500 mobile toilets thus recording the event in the Guiness Book of World Records.
Can’t our Jammu follow the example? Ref : Kumbh Mela Cleanliness effort making way to Guinness Record
We are in a dire need for a changed behaviour in regard to our perspective towards cleanliness and sanitation. The differential and preferencial demeanour is dishonest. A person standing at the bus terminus feel free to litter at his will. The same person feels cautious at the railway station for fear of being watched and at the airport the gentleman takes care to even breath vigilantly. If not this much, let us, at least, develop the railway station temperament for our daily life in our city. I recall an incident. I was standing in a neighbourhood in Jammu waiting for someone out there. I was holding the core seedy part of the apple consumed by me and looking for the trash bin. I enquired from a seemingly resident of the area to guide me to a trash bin. To my horror that guy laughingly said,” Sir, feel free, the entire stretch is a trash bin, throw anywhere, ha ha ha… Dumbstruck, I took a handkerchief and wrapped that for my pocket. This horrid attitude needs an overturn. At the end of the day, what we desire is a Swachh Jammu. And yes, together we can have it.
Let us all, under oath, pledge to strive to the best of our ability and resources to make Jammu clean and tidy as city Number ‘1’ .
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