Prime Minister will launch a cleanliness drive all over India on October 2. Although there is a saying: Cleanliness is next to Godliness, it hardly has had any effect on the people of India. The example is the Panjim market: It is stinking, dirty and disorganized. There is garbage everywhere; there is an open drainage and it produces nauseating smell. Possibly the market has not been washed since its opening. The iron staircases in the market complex are rusted; some of them are broken. Vegetable rejects, rotten vegetables, fruits and flowers, packing materials like plastics, papers, cardboards, slaughtering of certain live-stocks and rotten fish are the important sources of garbage and unhygienic conditions of the Panjim market. There are identifiable sources where the garbage originates. Each shop keeper must be held responsible for collecting the garbage he generates and packing them in plastic bags and garbage cans/bins. The collected garbage must be deposited at the collection centre for the municipal conservation personnel to dispose them off. Both punitive and educative methods must be implemented to maintain cleanliness in the public places where a large number of people congregate. The Panjim market transacts business in lakhs if not crores everyday but there is no money for its maintenance. There seems to be no one who is responsible for the upkeep of the market complex.
SND Poojary, Miramar
