Cleanliness of Ranchi urban area is the sole responsibility of Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC). However, when it comes to sticking to the task the civic body appears too slack not only in the municipal areas but also at its office. From ground to top floor the building, the supreme agency in-charge of cleanliness, appears to be sitting on stinking mess.
Municipality’s office is often the most widely visited office by ordinary people concerned about any work in municipal area and everyday hundreds of people turn up at the office for map, building and civic amenities related work. The amount of footfall is too high and so is the use of toilets. However, cleanliness is only for namesake- not more than once in a day.
Broken toilet panes, broken urinals and missing pipes, seeping water, wet floor, poor hygienic conditions due to few functional taps and dearth of disinfectants like naphthalene balls to prevent infections from spreading confuses people about the importance of cleanliness for the organization as well as leaves people with no doubt that cleanliness is yet to become the top priority of the municipal corporation.
“There is no other alternative but to use the facilities in whatever condition it is. I come here three times in a week to enquire about holding number of my flat but I rarely found toilets clean and it always stinks,” said resident of Morhabadi, RP Singh.
It’s not just the gut wrenching stench flowing out of urinals but also common places of spitting within the RMC’s building that makes people wonder the apathy on the part of the civic body. Ironically, few corners have become favourite places to spit for paan lovers who do so as a matter of right and impunity. These corners are looked and ignored as if it never existed.
like all Government offices the building of municipal corporation is also a huge junkyard of broken furniture, steel cupboards and files that seem to be of no use and left to decay with time. The unauthorized junkyards present the stark reality at the building which is appears clean from front but exposes the reality as one ventures inside it. The agency which launched ‘Swacch Bharat abhiyan’ missed ‘swacchta’ by miles in its own backyard.
“We do clean our premises regularly. RMC is visited by hundreds of people every day and we cannot stop them from using toilets. Yet, I will see that hygienic condition is maintained in toilets,” assured RMC Senior PRO, Ramkrishna Kumar.