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Kendrapara, Aug. 24: A group of homemakers’ bid to clean a street at Mirpatana under the Kendrapara Municipality has made the civic body workers wake up from their slumber.
The municipal workers, who had often played truant in carrying out the sanitation maintenance in the town, turned up at the site to assist the homemakers in the clean-up drive. Earlier, the municipal authorities have shied away from doing the clean-up drive for months together.
The women in a bid to walk the talk — do the community work — cleaned the street after putting in a two-hour voluntary labour.
“About a 100-metre lane that connects the locality was full of dirt. It had got clogged and filthy with bushes and shrubs choking it. With water getting stagnant, the place had turned unhealthy with stench smell coming out of it. More importantly, the locality had become a congenial breeding ground of mosquitoes,” said Damayanti Sahu, chief of the Maa Mangala Women’s Self-Help Group the members of which had carried out the sanitation drive.
The sanitation work at Mirpatana, located in the heart of the municipality, is conspicuous by its absence. Often the municipality’s attention has been drawn towards the civic woes, but in vain.
“It was a test of endurance for us as the municipal body, which was duty-bound to restore order, did not perform. The outbreak of mosquito-borne dengue disease spurred us to action. The women, themselves, took up the task to ensure healthy and disease-free environment in the area,” said Manojlaxmi Sahu, another homemaker.
“With the “do-it-yourself” resolve, we mobilised the homemakers to clean the dirt and restore the locality’s hospitable and healthy look,” she said. “After all, we live here. Since the authorities have turned indifferent, we, the residents, play our role in keeping cleanliness in order,” said Minati Das, a member of the self-help group.
“All urban wards of the municipality are littered with heaps of garbage. The local residents should replicate such community work admirably performed by the women at Mirapatna. Instead of languishing in unhealthy environment in the face of the civic body’s abysmal non-performance, it is better for the people to take up the cudgels rather than to wait for some “inept” officials,” said former chairman of Kendrapara Municipality Bijoy Krushna Sahu.
