Striking difference between Indian mainland and other developed countries is in the arena of sanitation around & maintenance of physical infrastructure in human settlements. Except a very few pockets in India (from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Dwarka to Sunderbans) almost the entire country suffers from the neglect of environs, untidy set-ups, carelessness and inadequate provisions for maintenance, lack of sanitation and cleanliness.
Everywhere - be it the roads, the platform, open space inside the campuses, the parking lots, the fronts of hotels, restaurants, repair shops of automobiles, ‘pan’ shops, the toilets inside cinema theatres, bus stands and the trains, wholesale & retail markets selling vegetables, fruits & flowers, fish, meat & poultry products, the condition of sanitation and cleanliness the less said the better.
Experiments in both public & private sectors for road-cleaning on daily basis have proved to be a flop (eg. Corporation of Chennai). Top executives / administrators & even middle level functionaries have been exposed to some sort of basic training initially and then followed by sporadic and refresher training once in a while whereas the cutting edge, namely, the real executioners at the grass roots have never been trained, sensitized and motivated sufficiently or supplemented with monetary incentives for excellence and thoroughness in their routine work. Higher-ups in administration – either general or in civic bodies, go abroad quite often, see the extraordinary change already achieved for the better in style and implementation but conveniently forget them all the moment they land on our motherland. We the citizens of India care more for our interior design, decorum and display whereas we care very little of our exterior environment and its upkeep.
A crash program for training of sweepers, scavengers and their middle level supervisors is the need of the hour. Despite several foreign jaunts by ministers, secretaries, engineers and doctors, Indian hamlets remain as dirty and stinking as possible. Nobody ever cares or cries for a halt to such a situation. Separate pay commission and pay revision should be put in place for this group of public servants so that Indian towns, roads and public places remain clean and maintained clean throughout the day, throughout the week and throughout the year.
Note: This article is sent to Director and Deputy Directors of LBS National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie.
