‘Built for people and ruined by people’, is what is happening in city currently. Wardha Road stretch between Central Jail and CSIR-NEERI is the perfect example of lack of civic sense among Nagpurians. The newly installed benches and other beautifying structures on both sides of Wardha Road, which were installed by Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) during C-20 Summit (G-20) couple of years ago, are now in dilapidated condition. Thanks to some irresponsible citizens, who dumped garbage near the structures, it is giving a shabby look to the road stretch. Instead of maintaining the spots, many have littered the place.

 

The footpaths near Central Jail were once a place where people used to take photos, spend some quality time with their family and friends, but now the place is used by people for nuisance like consuming alcohol and smoking publicly, which has forced other citizens to avoid the spot. The citizens who visit there daily for morning and evening walks, also gave vent to their emotions to ‘The Hitavada’. They mentioned that due to such nuisance, many of them stopped visiting the road stretch. The senior citizens who are residing nearby, used to sit there in morning and evening hours, but since people are littering that place, it has become difficult for them due to bad odour and other illegal activities. While talking to sanitation workers of NMC who regularly visit there for cleaning the spot, they said that, people visit there late night and consume alcohol in their car and throw bottles on footpath.

 

The workers collect dozens of alcohol bottles on daily basis from the spot. Those residing in the vicinity of the spot, expressed their concern and said that such behaviour at public places should not be accepted and it must be stopped as early as possible. The question arises here that as a citizen, what can we do and how can we solve this issue? We can not change people, but we can try to keep the place clean. Despite efforts by the local administration, the people should also be aware about the cleanliness of their city and they should put efforts to be vigilant about city’s public assets.