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Sudha Menon

Pune , May 4

POORLY maintained roads, an infrastructure that is on the verge of collapse, traffic conditions that make a mockery of safety norms, rising pollution and now, a daily four-hour load shedding.

Pune city, which is being promoted as the next destination for IT and industry, is paying the price for its unplanned rapid growth. And its denizens are complaining that elected representatives are doing little to alleviate their problems.

A group of interested citizens, led by consumers forum Grahak Panchayat, have now resolved to take control of the situation and force the administration to sit up and take notice.

Led by the Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat founder, Mr Bindumadhav Joshi, the forum plans to set up ward-level citizen vigilance committees, which will form pressure groups to force the administration to take cognisance of their problems and resolve them on priority.

The panchayat has been at the forefront in consumer-related issues the last few years and has now invited volunteers from all walks of life to form ankush pathaks or pressure groups, their only condition being that the candidates have to be apolitical.

To be formed within the next month, the pathaks will act as watchdogs to ensure that people's representatives take up their responsibilities.

"For a democracy to be effective, one of the most important requisites is that the people should participate in the process," Mr Joshi told Business Line.

The Grahak Panchayat's move already has the support of some of the city's influential people including the Vanrai President, Mr Mohan Dharia; the former Pune District Consumer Redressal Forum Chairman, Mr Justice P.N. Behre; the former Pune University pro-Vice-Chancellor and Grahak Panchayat President, Mr. S.N.Navalgundkar.

Pune city has witnessed unprecedented growth in the last seven to eight years largely fuelled by its evolution into an IT and ITES industry hub.

The result has been an influx of professionals into the city that has led to a sprout in several residential colonies and related infrastructure such as retail. The once verdant pensioners paradise is a now a hip city that rocks at night but is plagued by problems such as water shortage, poor road conditions and high levels of pollutions.

Even as the citizens, as the end-consumers, are closing ranks to take charge of their city, the Pune Municipal Commission has begun an exercise that will seek the help of citizens, non-governmental organisations, children and youth for environmental friendly management of the city's solid waste. Inspired by film maker Mr Sai Paranjpe's latest film Chakachak, the municipal corporation, which has set up a zero garbage target in place for August this year, has involved citizens in the project to make the city clean.

Residential colonies in each of the city wards will segregate their dry and wet garbage and will ensure that the latter is used for vermi-composting in their individual premises.

Biodegradable waste from houses and hotels will be used for organic manure, which will be used in civic gardens. On the anvil is a biogas plant, which will use the city's waste to create value.

The civic authorities have pressed a contingent of cycle-rickshaws which will go to slum settlements around the city to collect waste while a network of rag pickers associations will help it collect recyclable waste.

Pune city generates over a thousand tonnes of garbage daily.

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