The festival season, or say fever, started quite early in 2024 with lots of activities by various clubs, park committees, lane groups, social groups, mandir teams, and market teams to create momentum for the residents of Defcol. The so-called “JOSH” was at the highest levels among all age groups, but the poor side of these festivals was seen just after Diwali when the entire colony was filled with garbage, poly-packs, cartons, busted crackers, etc.
What happened and why?
• Diwali was on Thursday (31st Oct), followed by Vishwakarma Day, Bhai Dhooj, and other holidays for five long days.
• The team of our MCD sanitation staff was on the longest holiday as they started celebrating pre-Diwali festivals like Karwa, Ahoi, Dhanteras, etc. 4-5 days before Diwali, which means the colony was not cleaned for 8-10 days!!
• Our sensible residents kept throwing their daily garbage in the backlanes; some of them also kept their old discarded furniture, toilet seats, tubs, empty packs, food leftovers, etc., in the service lanes to “keep their houses clean for Diwali”.
• Many residents get whitewashing, painting, etc. done before Diwali, which results in conveniently throwing empty tins of paint, etc., old clothes, brushes, discarded items, etc. in the backlanes.
• Once Diwali was over, our sensible and well-educated residents woke up to observe garbage in their back lanes and started complaining in various social media groups. Some of them even used foul language for the culprits who threw the garbage to crate this mess around their house.
How can we prevent this in future?
• The garbage in our colony belongs to our residents only!! If we do not throw or train our domestic helpers to throw in the service lanes or anywhere, then our colony will become neat and clean.
• Many who keep boasting with an old slogan from Indore (the cleanest city in India for more than one decade): “My Colony, My Pride”. These bosses are good enough for their own “social groups,” But on the field, no one is seen ever to get even their lanes cleaned. We strongly suggest they stop this propaganda and coordinate with the local sweepers to get their lanes cleaned daily.
• The sanitation staff has to work for a minimum of eight hours every day to ensure every lane and road are cleaned every day. The irony is that these workers who get handsome salaries work for only 1-2 hours to clean a part of their allocated lanes, which results in poor condition of our service or front lanes at all times. We appoint a big team for the RWA who must take this seriously and divide lanes among the elected or their volunteers to ensure these sanitation staff are executing their duties daily. If any resident is throwing any type of garbage in the service lanes, then the MCD staff must get them challans to keep these defaulting residents under control.
• The CCTV is a must for the service lanes to keep a check on any residents throwing discarded items in the service lanes.
