One doesn’t know when the city called Srinagar would turn into a smart city, but one wonders how much this city has to change before even qualifying for becoming a normal, liveable city.
The fundamentals on which the concepts of a city rests may come later, but the first thing that makes a space good for living now seems to be missing in this city.
It is increasingly turning into a space stuffed with huge population managing its living in the most chaotic manner. What makes it terribly repulsive is the state of its cleanliness – or call it uncleanliness.
Take any area of this city, without any distinction of posh or otherwise, garbage dumps at regular intervals make a sickening site. And with each day passing these garbage dumps turn bigger.
The wet waste that is thrown on roadsides or is heaped at some spots is a loud judgment on our civic character.
We seem to have lost the distinction between ugly and pleasant. There is a shocking split in our personalities. We invest huge money in building our houses and getting finest things to beautify the space within our individual compounds.
But when it comes to the street, to the lane, and the road outside – we never mind to take all the trash and throw it outside. There is something seriously wrong with our mind, with our character, and with our behaviour.
Any city is finally a reflection of its inhabitants. If there are garbage dumps, and if it stinks everywhere, the ugly lies within us.
The least we can do, as responsible citizens living in this city, is to manage the waste that our household produces.
And this is not any difficult. It only needs little attention. For the concerned authorities, it is time to take up a sensitisation drive, and involve each household in it.
Before penalising people for throwing the waste outside, we can make it a matter of shame to litter, and to throw the waste outside.
Unless a sustained campaign is undertaken to rid this city off these garbage dumps, our localities would keep stinking.