Clean Lucknow: When and How

If there is anything that the Lucknowites can take pride in, it would be ‘Lucknow: The City That Was’. This is so because the present day Lucknow, with all its filth, garbage, sewers, open drains, dirty water, bad roads and unhygienic conditions, has not much to boast about.
So when several like-minded people assembled at City Montessori School’s Gomti Nagar Branch, in a joint program organized by Lucknow Management Association and Kabir Shanti Mission, headed by the District Commissioner, Rakesh Kumar Mittal, one had the opportunity to dream of a Lucknow without all the evils mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Problems and their likely solutions were discussed. People renowned for their dedicated work in the field of health and hygiene, including Dr. Upendra Kumar of Destination Lucknow Manch, Rambodh Mourya, City Commissioner, Jyant Krishna of Lucknow Management Association, Dr. Alok Dhawan, Scientist with ITRC, J.C. Singhal, Chief Engineer of Jal Nigam, Navin Joshi, the Resident Editor of Hindustan and a senior citizen SP Kalsi, alongwith RK Mittal representing Kabir Shanti Mission – the organizer of the evening – put forward their views in front of an audience comprising the who’s who of the city. Jagdish Gandhi, renowned preacher of right living and founder of City Montessori School too was there on stage. AP Verma, Ex. Chief Secretary UP, presided over the function.
Professor Jamal Nusrat’s book ‘Pani Ki Talash’ too was launched on the occasion. The book highlighting the various needs and usage of water has been published by Kabir Shanti Mission.
Dr. Upendra Kumar highlighted the need to make Lucknow more livable including better law and order situation as well as better living conditions.
RK Mittal, known as he is for seeing the glass half full rather than half empty, talk of the ongoing endeavours to transform the face of Lucknow.
City Commissioner Rambodh Maurya, who has taken over the responsibility of handling the municipal affairs of Lucknow after a successful tenure in the same area in Ghaziabad, further highlighted the present problems in his usual humorous though candid tone. “When I tried to get into the problem, I found that whatever is needed to make a city clean, nothing has been done. This belies the view that Lucknow is a developed city,” said Mr. Maurya further citing that Lucknow has a population of more than 30 lakh which gives out 500 mld sewer water but the present treatment is of 40 mld. “Ravana of pollution has to be killed,” Mr. Maurya added.
Dr. Alok Dhawan and Dr. VP Sharma spoke on Solid Waste Management and how this could problems afflicts the city. Dr. Dhawan’s speech was aimed at sensitizing the citizens of Lucknow, with visual proofs of all his claims. Citing that not much is being done in the city, he said that ‘without scavengers we wont be able to live in this city.’ The hazard of plastic waste too was discussed and the speech ended with the one-liner, “Failure is not an option!!”
Jayant Krishna, President of Lucknow Management Association talked of solutions that look simple but are rather overlooked. He cited the quote of Russell, a European visitor to Lucknow in 1858 who had said: “Not Rome, not Athens, not Constantinople. Not any city I have seen appears to me as striking.” Yet we lost out somewhere and other Indian cities constantly moved ahead to leave Lucknow behind.
Navin Joshi further highlighted the plight saying that Lucknowites have do not value the citizenship. Nobody drives in a line, people have lost patience, none is bothered about city’s hygiene and nobody’s head bends down in shame.
All appeared united on the need to clean Lucknow. When and how is the million rupee question that needs to be answered!