Dustbin removed, people still drop waste at Mohini Road
PrashantNews
On a cold winter night, 75 year old Rama Devi (name changed) returned home after stealthily dropping a plastic bag containing waste at Mohini Road in Dehradun city where few days ago the city municipality had removed a dustbin under the orders of the Uttarakhand administration.
Devi said she would continue to drop waste few yards away from her home till she gets an alternate site. Devi has so far refused to pay Rs 70 to the waste collection vehicle which comes on every alternate day in her lane. “Why should I pay when I can drop the waste myself,” said Devi angrily.
Devi is not alone in such waste-littering exercise at Mohini Road. For the past 2-3 days since the dustbin was removed, scores of people continued to drop waste at the same spot mostly in the night to escape the fine. The Dehradun municipality has put up a banner at the site saying Rs 500 fine will be imposed on all those people who drop waste there. But people have been littering waste there without any fear.
Last week, Chief Secretary Sukhbir Singh Sandhu has asked the municipality to launch efforts for making Dehradun as dustbin-free zone. As part of this move, the municipality has started removing dustbins from the city.
“This is a good move by the state administration to make Dehradun dustbin free. But the citizens should also actively support this move,” said Dr Vinod Sharma, a former top official of the ONGC.
But the municipality is finding it an uphill task to make Dehradun a smart city under a central government project. “We have started the process. Let’s see when we will be able to achieve this goal,” said a top government official.
Rajkumar, a former MLA and a prominent Congress leader, has also welcomed the move saying the government should launch an awareness campaign in this regard. Ends