Nagpur: Office bearers of Rotary Nagpur North, Ishanya, Main, Vision and volunteers of Tejaswini Mahila Manch and I-Clean have already taken the plunge while thousands of students from 200 schools will hit the streets to strengthen waste management of the city. This one initiative is founded on a practical, actionable principle of private-public partnership – – to convert the city of Nagpur into a fine, ideal urban centre by the year 2025.
Activities have started across the city as part of the waste management and cleanliness component of Nagpur@2025, an initiative of the Vidarbha Economic Development Council (VED) and NGOs in association with Nagpur Municipal Corporation and Nagpur city police. Having been launched a few months ago, it has already started waking common people up to the glorious possibility of changing the very face of Nagpur jointly with official agencies.
The premise is simple — working together without a blame game, working together with a sense of joint responsibility. Tripartite Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) have already been signed among the VED Council, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) and Nagpur Police to work for five verticals such as (1) Waste Management and Cleanliness; (2) Public Toilets and Conveniences; (3) Public Spaces, Gardens and Recreational Areas; (4) Rejuvenation of Lakes and Heritage Sites; and (5) Traffic Management.
“We are happy to note that in the past months, considerable public support and official cooperation have been elicited. We have begun working on the first three verticals in welcome public participation and official cooperation. It is just a matter of sheer happiness to step out of our houses at 6 in the morning, and march to various areas in company of high ranking civic officials to start working”, members of the core group say.
Municipal Commissioner Radhakrishnan B deputed Additional Municipal Commissioner Ram Joshi on behalf of the NMC, and Commissioner of Police deputed Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) ex-officio to coordinate with the members of public. Reasonably good body of work has been done in the first three initiatives in Dharampeth Zone of the NMC with the help of Assistant Commissioner Prakash Varade; Laxmi Nagar Zone with the help of Assistant Commissioner Mrs. Kiran Bagde; Lakadganj Zone with the help of Assistant Commissioner Ganesh Rathod; Mangalwari Zone with the help of Assistant Commissioner Vijay Humane; Satranjipura Zone with the help of Ghanshyam Pandhare.
All the work is being monitored by Additional Commissioner Ram Joshi on a daily basis. A 27-member working committee has been put together to monitor the project of lasting value and life. An eight-member Advisory Group and a panel of 14 organisations also have been formed to give the initiative a wider base and appeal.
The results are encouraging, the core group members assert. Among first steps is the move to make usage of public urinals in the city free of charge. This may be a small step, so to say, but the core group is happy that the NMC authorities have accepted its request for scrapping of the usage fee. That will encourage more people to use those facilities and not spoil public spaces, the group feels. “The task is enormous and will take a lot of effort. But in most areas that we approach, common people have come forward to participate in the activity of cleaning up places, to start with. So enthusiastic are people that they come out of their homes in good numbers every morning. Their preference, however, is Sundays. And that creates a new problem for the NMC personnel most of whom have Sundays as weekly off days. But that is not a big issue. Soon, we will be able to work a way out,” a member of the core group said.
Of course, the initiative also calls for spending much time every morning with the people — which the core group members and others are doing. They have their own business or work engagements as well through the remainder of the day.
“That stretches us a little too much, but we are enjoying it”, the core group members say with banana grins on their faces. They also expect the people of the city to join the initiative in increasing numbers so that the challenge of converting the city into a modern, clean, well managed metropolis in the next three years is met with complete success. It is only natural that such initiatives also require some funding. The core group has sorted out this challenge by resorting to the mechanism of crowdfunding — which appears to have tackled at least the initial anxieties. And this is all with only one thought — “Our city makes us the people we are”, as the concept document of Nagpur@2025 says.
