Residents sweep Chowrastha. Picture by Suman Tamang

Darjeeling, Feb. 20: Brooms in hand and slogans against the municipality on their lips, nearly 300 residents moved around the town today, sweeping the streets and clearing huge piles of garbage.

The GNLF-controlled civic board has not been collecting the garbage for the past couple of days, allegedly because it has been hamstrung by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha-backed indefinite shutdown in the hills.

The Morcha, however, had claimed that essential services were exempted from the bandh.

Today, the residents, along with Morcha leaders, took the onus of cleaning the town on themselves.

“Last evening, we held a meeting and members of four business associations decided to contribute Rs 20 each to clear the garbage. We have formed the Non-Municipal Volunteers’ Organisation, which has hired 34 workers who will be paid a daily wage of Rs 60 for clearing the garbage,” said Dinesh Gurung, the president of the town committee of the Morcha and a civic commissioner.

Around 10 this morning, the volunteers and Morcha supporters gathered at Chowk Bazar and were joined by residents from almost every ward of the municipal area.

The group of 300 or so people headed directly for Chowrastha and swept the Mall, the town’s most famous promenade.

Later, they also swept Nehru Road, Ladenla Road and other parts of the town. The teams not only cleared dumping vats but also sprinkled bleaching powder on them.

Around noon, four trucks were deployed to collect the waste and deposit it at the dumping chute outside the town. By 2pm, the cleaning drive was over.

The involvement of the residents appeared spontaneous.

“After all, it is the general public who were suffering. We have elected the municipality councillors, but they are not bothered about the well-being of the people. If the garbage was left unattended, it would have turned into a health hazard,” said Saroja Sharma, a resident from town.

The Morcha sought to cash in on the new-found goodwill of the people.

“The municipality no longer enjoys the mandate of the people and though the civic board is trying different ways to harass people, our supporters have shown how determined they are to create a new Darjeeling by themselves,” said Puran Thami, a youth leader of the Morcha.

Gurung added: “We have now directed representatives of different residents’ forums to form committees and start clearing the garbage from areas we could not cover today. We will, however, continue to clean certain parts of the town till the municipality starts doing its work again.”