Way back in December 2013, before the Swachh Bharat campaign was launched, the cash-strapped Aurangabad Municipal Corporation fined citizens for littering public places. An insightful and resourceful former municipal commissioner Harshdeep Kamble directed all 18 sanitary inspectors to fine people found dirtying roads and other public places to inculcate civic sense and raise funds for the city corporation. The inspectors’ target was to collect a minimum fine of Rs 2,000 every day.
The municipal fines ranged from Rs 25 for spitting, and dirtying public places for individuals, to Rs 100 for vegetable vendors and barbers, Rs 150 for meat and chicken sellers, Rs 200 for pathology labs, Rs 300 for small hotels and Rs 1000 for big hotels found throwing dirt in the open. Scrap dealers too were fined Rs 100 for dirtying public places and individuals Rs 500 for urinating in the open.
The manner in which ministers, MLAs, public corporation officials, CISF, coast guard, police, government servants and all and sundry are pilling over each other to be seen in photographs as part of Prime Minister’s Swachh Bharat campaign, is grossly amusing. It appears that prior to the Prime Minister campaign, MLAs and babus were completely insensitive to cleanliness around them. Suddenly one finds four VIPs with four brooms, sweeping a square metre of road or bus stand. Swachh Bharat is one more opportunity for officials to curry personal favour with ministers and the ruling party, when they are seen with the broom, which they would otherwise shun like the plague.
In this context, Calangute MLA Michael Lobo should be applauded for calling the campaign a “one day drama” and something foolproof such as garbage plants and infrastructure is necessary to keep Goa clean. No babus have shown the guts to tell their political masters that civic bodies have failed to prevent dirtying of public places, and that they should pay for it with their jobs. People pay for the public services, including for cleanliness and sanitation through taxes. If the civic officials do not do their job well, does it imply that elected leaders and citizens should do their jobs for them?
At one level, it is amazing that the Prime Minister, Central and State Ministers, Governors, Chief Ministers are all preoccupied with cleanliness, something which would be routine civic work of departments. In the words of the Calangute MLA, who we hope will not retract his statement, one needs to see how long this “drama” will last and when our city corporations, councils and village panchayats will get their act together and keep the public spaces clean.
At another level, though the Prime Minister’s campaign, is commendable and necessary, and brought the national focus on cleanliness and sanitation, the biggest danger of such campaigns is that when there are public spirited people to clean the mess, free riders will be encouraged to dirty public places. The solution to keeping India clean is by creating a cleanliness culture by providing adequate dust bins at every few metres at public places and buildings, garbage processing system at village level, and stiff fines, as done by the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation, with increased fines for repeat offences. Jobs which can be done by your municipal or panchayat body and which could have been initiated by a Directorate of Municipal Administration, should not usurp the time of the prime minister, governor, chief minister, ministers, or MLAs, since they have to attend to important matters of State and policy.
The second most important national endeavour of all concerned civic authorities should be to ensure adequate toilets at bus stands, slum areas, villages and public places including public offices. If a city like Panjim does not have adequate toilets for the public, the situation in the rest of India, can well be imagined.
In the 90s, a block panchayat in Kerala constructed 2000 toilets, one for each household, through 75% funding, drawing praise and support from the World Bank. Similar missionary zeal and accountability will be needed from our civic bodies and sanitary inspectors to draw up plans for infrastructure and fines for improving public sanitation, rather than forcing the country’s highest elected representatives and citizens to do their job for them.
