My letter to Editor, Hitavada.

Lawless and irresponsible driving has assumed alarming proportions. Asawari Shenoilikar has raised the issue non too soon. She has blamed the reckless youngsters, parents, Metro authorities and rightly so. She left out authorities responsible to ensure that rules are strictly followed, who are the biggest culprits. News items have appeared informing us that 2000 odd e-chalans have been issued. There is an undertone of "a job well done". The way people of Nagpur, young, middle aged and old alike, flout the traffic rules,jumping red light, drive in the wrong lane,no helmet, three on a two wheeler, with cctv cameras every where, 2000 e-challans should be raised EVERY hour and followed scrupulously.

 I am confident if Traffic police comes out of their slumber, things Will improve. 

Metro News.
Work on salb laying for rail bed in full swing.
Concrete slurry being pourded for slab on which rails will be laid.

CLEAN NAGPUR.
Empty plots and plots without known ownership make for ideal garbage dump for lazy and civic sense lacking people of Nagpur. 
One such plot of latter type is situated behind Anusaya Mangal Karyalaya. Once few tons of garbage is collected,the stench and fear of deceases become overwhelming, the same people who had contributed in creating the situation complain. Corporation JCB machine comes and clears the garbage. One such cleaning was done couple of days back. Within a day garbage has started piling up again. Attached photos speak louder than words.
In Indore of 2015/16 such a sight would have resulted in collective fines on ALL THE HOUSEHOLDS IN LINE OF SIGHT OF THAT SPOT. Such fines have made Indore cleanest city in INDIA, TWO YEARS RUNNING.
ANY thinking on making NAGPUR a clean city ???

Following sent to Editor The Hitavada. Let us see what happens.
We have just returned from a trip to Indore.
Had heard that Indore is a very clean city. Considering that it was declared number one CLEANEST city in India consecutively for the last two years, calling it a "clean city" is understatement of the century.
In my 76 years of life,minus earliest 5 odd years when I did not know any thing about any thing, I have never seen any city, town, village and what have you, SOOOOOOOO clean, litter & garbage free.
ANOTHER achievement of equal significance, not a SINGLE COW OR ANIMAL OF ANY TYPE on the road hindering traffic or become an accident potential.
It was wonderful experience.
Heightened civic sense is the most welcome fall out of this, 3 to 4 years of "Clean Indore" campaign, is that every resident of that city is justifiably proud of his city. He does not litter or throws around garbage himself, but also checks fellow citizens from doing so.
This magical change was brought about by ruthless enforcement of the rules about fines for littering or throwing garbage. Defaulters were fined ₹ 500 to 1000 for every transgression, without fear or favour.
Simultaneously provisions were made for door to door garbage collection. People quickly learnt the valuable lesson. By the time Indore had won number ONE clean city for the second year it had become a habit. People of Indore want to make it a hat-trick.
WHY OH WHY my Nagpur can not be a clean city. Garbage and 'animals on road' free city.
Will powers be, ruthlessly enforce the rule about fines for littering/garbage disposable to bring about the change.

BUREAUCRACY - NON APPLICATION OF MIND - CLASSIC EXAMPLE.

Plants are dead. Dirty & Dusty,Desolate divider.

Plants are dead. Dirty & Dusty,Desolate divider.

After BJP govt came to power and Nagpur was selected to be made a smart city large scale mega infrastructure projects were launched.

Concretisng almost all the roads was one such mega infrastructure project. The dividers on quite a few roads were sufficiently wide to be planted with saplings. 

Full marks to those involved, for including planting of saplings on these concreted road dividers  and maintenance of the same for few months in the tender documents / contract.

As concreting work of a section was completed including planting of six rows of saplings, it presented a beautiful picture and made one proud to be a Nagpurian.  

Sadly, once the contracted period of plant maintenance was over and watering of plants was stopped, gradually the plants all died. The dividers now look dusty,dirty and desolate. 

Non application of mind : No thought was given to type of saplings to be planted.

Application of mind and little use of commonsense would have dictated selection of hardy , tenacious and hard to kill plants with least amount of watering and maintenance. Chafa and bougainvillea are just two examples. These plants would have survived after maintenance during contracted period was over.

Non application of mind : No thought was given and No plans were made to keep watering and maintaining these plants on which lot of public money was spent.

A standard tam plate be made for tendering contracts of mega projects which MUST include lessons learnt from each such project / event.

Letter to Editor.

After a long long time sent off this :

Dear sir,

Your esteemed news paper if in the forefront of highlighting issues fo public interest. I feel this issue needs to be highlighted by your paper   

This post is for NAGPUR MUNICIPAL CORP ? NIT.

This is the photo of Street lights Along the ring road from Hingna T point to Wardha road.

These street lights were installed just couple of years back after completion on concrete road. With new plants on the divider, new streetlights of contemporary design the new road looked world class.

The plants have all died due to poor maintenance and and lack of water.

The street lights are still good, they still have the contemporary look .

Then WHY are they being replaced with, may be similar looking new street lights. Replacement light poles can be seen lying on the divider. 

There is a well known adage "don't mend,if not broke"

Then,

Why are we wasting public money 

 Yours sincerely,

PM Velankar.