People's war on garbage

Kolkata’s citizens decide not to wait for the government and do it themselves.

Great spirit, good show. Read it all. A choice excerpt:

So one morning in early October, the spot saw a rather unusual gathering: about 50-odd individuals of various age, two dozen uniformed “green police volunteers”, and a fair collection of hoes and shovels. Backing them up on the road were three garbage trucks, a towing truck for vehicles, and a posse of policemen with benign expressions and a wireless van, come to cast a watchful and protective eye. In two hours, most of the garbage and the shells of the two cars were gone and those assembled left feeling elated. They had actually liberated 600 sq ft of public space from garbage. The best thing happened the next morning — pictures in a couple of papers and a longish story in one of them on the initiative. The group was galvanized to do more.

They discovered another easy target — a low jungle on top of piled-up compacted garbage, hiding a stinking public toilet, next to a water hyacinth-covered waterbody, again in as central a Kolkata location as you can get — the part of the Maidan at the crossing of Chowringhee and Park Street. Then began a minor saga of action by citizens, with help from within officialdom via individual initiative and growing corporate involvement. In close to two months, 50,000 sq ft of the Maidan has been fairly cleaned up, a 70,000 sq ft waterbody rid of its water hyacinth, 40 tonnes of garbage removed and, most importantly, work actively afoot to clean up and level out an adjoining 100,000 sq ft in order to convert it into a four-cricket pitches square and surrounding outfield.

Very heartening indeed. Read it all.