Gurdaspur Diary: An open letter to Deputy Commissioner Uma Shankar Gupta
Sir,
The city is in a civic mess. Garbage is piling up and it stinks. To add to woes, an epidemic is waiting to happen if this state of affairs continues to prevail. Trash, tons of it, is ending up at places where it should not. We, the residents of the city, request you to take a drive in your car on the road leading to the Pathankot highway in front of the BSNL office and the Milk plant. The Regional Centre of the PAU is also located nearby. These are the three main landmarks of the town. You will have a fair idea of what is going on. The Municipal Committee (MC) is the villain of the piece. It has developed a knack of allowing the city’s litter to pile up at all the wrong places. The road leads to a couple of hotels located across the railway crossings. This, in essence, means hundreds of people use this passage every day. But they do it only after tying a handkerchief on their faces, a reminder of the Covid days when mask had become a de rigueur while stepping out.
Sir, you are the executive head of the district. It is your responsibility to step in when institutions fail to deliver. Please be a part of the solution, not a part of the pollution. The MC officials give a different viewpoint. They say the waste used to be sent to a dump near Maan Chopra village. This went on for the last several years. However, recently somebody pointed out that a religious place was located nearby. And then, environmentalist Baba Seechewal arrived on the scene. He held meetings with the district administration. Subsequently, orders went out that the MC should throw the garbage anywhere and everywhere, but not near Maan Chopra village. The MC was caught napping for it had no site where it could throw the trash. Mr Seechewal did solve the problem of Maan Chopra village. However, simultaneously he ushered in a new problem. The irony is clearly visible. In residences near the new dumping site, groups of civil hospital officials are telling people how to avoid dengue. “Keep your environs clean and use mosquito nets,” they tell people. Paradoxically, not far away are placed massive heaps of garbage. Tuberculosis, pneumonia, diarrhea and tetanus are some of the common diseases spread through improper waste management. Parasites thrive in waste and are easily communicable to humans through skin contact and respiration. Romesh Mahajan, who owes a hotel barely 200 meters from the pile of trash, says his clientele has been badly affected. “I request the DC to mark an inquiry as to how all this has happened,” he said.
DC sir, act promptly. Otherwise, your tenure here will be remembered for an epidemic breakout the possibility of which cannot be ruled out keeping in view the conditions. The MC says it has placed advertisements in newspapers seeking 3 acres of land on the city’s outskirts. However, nothing tangible has been achieved till yet. Cleanliness is next to godliness, it is said. Lesser mortals cannot attain divinity but they can surely strive for some betterment.
Vox Populi
Tech helps solve crime case as Cops find missing boy from Batala with aid of CCTVs
On August 14, Deepak Sharma, a Class 6 student of government school, Gurdas Nangal village, went missing. His father, Sonu Sharma, lodged a missing report the next day at the Dhariwal police station. DSP (Dhariwal police sub-division) Kulwant Singh formed a team which also had SHO Baljit Kaur in it. For the next couple of days, footage of scores of CCTVs cameras installed from Dhariwal till Amritsar was checked and rechecked. Finally, a clue took the team to Batala. Here again, the CCTV cameras came to the team’s rescue. The location of Deepak Sharma was traced and the boy was united with his parents. The moral of the story is that technology really helps solve crime cases. And the cops made full use of it in this instance. Well done, Gurdaspur police. Well done DSP Kulwant Singh.
(Contributed by Ravi Dhaliwal)
