Sonam Wangdi Road before the wash. Picture by Suman Tamang

Darjeeling, Feb. 8: What once used to be the job of the civic body, residents of the hill town today decided to do it themselves.

Keeping with the tradition of the British Raj in Darjeeling, residents of Chandmari here today swept and washed Sonam Wangdi Road, which had turned into a slush pool, following intermittent rain over the past few days.

During the Raj, it was the regular job of the civic body to get fire-tenders to wash the streets of the hill town. “We want to keep our area clean and so washed the road to get rid of the mud and debris,” said Dinesh Gurung, commissioner, Ward 25.

Gurung took the initiative along with members of Chandmari Sudar Sangh and workers of conservancy department and the municipality engineering department.

The people of the area pooled in a tidy sum of Rs 2,250 and bought 18,000 l of water to wash the 50-m stretch of Sonam Wangdi Road. The programme was a welcome relief for the people as the street had turned muddy and slippery in the rain, and refuse from an adjacent vegetable market had made things worse.

The clean-up drive was launched two weeks ago under which the residents have been whitewashing the walls and covering manholes, giving the area a spic-and-span look.

“I would like to thank Gurung for the drive,” said Sonam Gyentsen Wangdi, son of Sonam Wangdi, after whom the road is named.

Happy that the residents of Chandmari had thought of such a programme, Gurung said it would be better if people of other localities under the Darjeeling municipality take up similar initiatives.

At a small programme, the ward also gave away Administration Day awards to three citizens who had the cleanest premises in the area.