Let’s Keep Our Roads Leading To Outskirts Clean

Pune is blessed with surrounding hills, beautiful hill stations, forts and lakes . Nature has been truly kind to us with great climate and beautiful spaces in and around Pune. While there is a lot of awareness on keeping these places clean, we often forget the beautiful roads leading to these places. These are the roads which lead us to these beautiful places and give us memories of life.

In past few years, rapid industrial growth has resulted in the city growing in population as well as size. The townships and residences are not restricted to the city itself, but there is a lot of development happening in the fringe areas, outskirts and even around Pune. No doubt, development brings prosperity but it also brings with it a lot of challenges. And one of the major challenges is waste management. These very roads leading to outskirts  which were once like a beautiful necklace decorating the city, are now witnessing dumping of litter on a large scale . A lot of people travel from the outskirts to the city for work. Setting up proper waste management systems in the fringe areas requires time, but in the meanwhile people start to litter on the sides of these roads which is now evident to all those who travel in and out of Pune. These become easy dumping spots not only for common people but also hawkers and material waste generated during household work like furniture,  building materials etc. These are easy places as it goes unnoticed. This results in highway sidelines becoming big chronic spots. To add to it, the litter is not picked up on a regular basis on the highways.

This is a challenge which needs attention especially by the common people themselves. While door to door collection system will eventually get established, people should be aware of consequences of throwing the litter on the highways. A multi-pronged approach is needed to address the issue. Citizens in the fringe areas which have now been merged with the city need to connect with their local bodies and work towards speeding up establishment of collection systems . 

While waste collection system is the key, removing the chronic spots, volunteering along with awareness and citizens engagement is extremely crucial.

Mangesh Kshirsagar
Volunteer, APCCI