“Cleanliness in Public Markets”

Cleanliness in Public Markets

Executive Summary
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Swachh Bharat Mission has brought in a lot of exuberance in the citizens of India and many of us now want to do our bit towards keeping our house/neighbourhood/workplace, city and country clean.
The subject of ‘Cleanliness in Public Markets’ was covered in the 210,000 strong citizens’ community for governance ‘Swachh Bharat’. With a large number of citizens participating in the Discussion, the following reflects how the Citizens of India feel about the current state of Cleanliness in Public Markets in India.
Based on the inputs from the citizens, it appears that the way going forward is that the traders associations of the markets take responsibility of keeping their markets clean, create vendor/visitor awareness and the municipality being made responsible for doing their work in a professional and efficient manner.

Issues Identified:
1. Not enough dustbins in the markets
2. People urinate on the road sides
3. People don’t throw the garbage in the bins
4. Street vendors don’t have bins or not big enough to accommodate their trash
5. People spit on the roads
6. Dumps are not cleaned regularly by the municipality
7. People use corners and empty spaces to throw garbage
8. Shopkeepers throw garbage on the roads
9. Municipal workers don’t do their job well
10. Open drains and in many cases overflowing drains

Root Causes Identified:
1. No fines imposed by the Government on littering markets
2. Dustbins are stolen from public places
3. Lack of clean public toilets in markets
4. Public lacks civic sense
5. Rag pickers make a mess in the dumps and litter the garbage around
6. The Municipal collection of garbage does not happen regularly on time and hence there is an overflow
7. Plastic bags are available very easily in the markets
8. Hawkers don’t clean the area where they stand
9. People avoid close proximity to bins due to smell/ filthiness and tend to throw garbage into public bins from a distance
10. Lack of enforcement and monitoring by the civic agencies
11. Market associations don’t take proactive steps to maintain the cleanliness in the markets
12. Drainage system is badly designed
13. Footpaths are occupied by street vendors
14. Lack of awareness among the public about the necessity of cleanliness

Solutions Identified:
1. Dustbins should be placed after every 50 meters in the markets
2. Clean and free public toilets should be made in different markets
3. Social campaigns should be designed to tell people to make throwing garbage in bins a habit
4. All Street/Mobile vendors should be made to carry a dustbin along with their cart
5. Street vendors should be fined if the area around where they stand is filthy and should be made responsible for its cleanliness
6. There should be heavy penalties on spitting on the road
7. Throwing garbage on the roads should attract fines
8. The market association should make a mandate where each shopkeeper has a dustbin, collects its daily garbage and throws it in the dump in the evening
9. A tight vigil should be kept on the municipal workers to make sure that they perform their duties well
10. The drainage system should be redesigned to make sure the drains never overflow
11. Plastic bags should be completely banned
12. Municipal collection of garbage from the big dumps should happen twice every day without fail
13. The trader’s associations should be made an integral part of the Swachh Bharat campaign
14. A local cleanliness team should be appointed at each market, funded by the vendors who operate there
15. Guidelines should be made for waste disposal to educate vendors and visitors
16. Biodegradable waste should be converted into manure and sold to farmers to raise revenue for waste management process
17. CCTV cameras should be put at strategic locations in the markets
18. Footpaths should be free of street vendors and exclusively for pedestrians
19. Market should be divided into sections and clean area must be awarded suitably with some sort of recognition

Cleanliness in Public Markets –A few Citizen Quotes:
1. Either cameras should be put in place at each strategic locations for strict vigil or drone based monitoring through cameras should be put in place – Pradeep Gupta

2. For a lot of such acts, the penalty can be partly fine, as a contribution for the locality's cleanliness drive and partly compulsory community services, ranging from say 1-2 days to may be a week. As a matter of practice for all defaulters of general civic sense, the penalty of punishment can also be services towards community service for cleaning – Pradmaja Krishnan

3. We can install biogas plant in public markets such as yeshvanthpur, banshankari etc. Instead of throwing fruit n vegetable waste on roads it can be put into plant to generate electricity n can be used for street lights n so on – Vinayaka Kashyap

4. Markets are responsibility of shopkeepers in that area. If market streets are littered with filth the president and the secretaries are made accountable and prosecuted. If this is enforced, shopkeepers will employ safai karmcharies of their own. Obviously, the cost of cleanliness gets added to products sold. Why malls in Delhi are so clean? Because, the mall owner employs a company for this and therefore, the goods are costly. Unless people are rudely told by guards to pick up litter they throw, the system will not improve. Why are PVRs so clean and costly? Because they own the responsibility for this. Obviously, all expenditure is taken care by cinema goers and not PVR. The law should prosecute mercilessly the president and secretary of a market association if cleanliness is lacking – Anupam Jaitley

5. TV Programs must be created in all regional languages to convey How & What to do for keeping, Homes, Public places, clean. What are its benefits? Straight away tell what a Mother can do, a Father & Children can as individuals should do. In a poor country like us Education through a Drama, Play, and Pictures is the way. Secondly, Convey that We are paying for all the Waste we generate, it is our Money, we paid for it – Anjan Chatterjee

6. Again, it's a question of providing bins, and teaching all the parties concerned...suppliers, vendors, consumers, etc. not to litter, and to keep the space clean. One of the worst scenes is the wet mud areas--what we call keecharh--- where filth as well as mud accumulates. This problem can be overcome by making sure that the entire area around the market is paved and cleaned regularly. there has to be a vigilant effort by the municipal council as well as the stakeholders in the market...only then can we overcome dirty markets – Adhjiraj Dutt

7. Use of polythene carry bags and disposable for eatables be controlled and banned by the Govt. As both items create unnecessary garbage on the road and public places – Purushottam Khandelwal

8. every market place of vegetables should engage one person for 25 shops to clean up every hour and that 25 shops should pay the salary to the person it will solve the problem of cleanliness and employment – Shashi Shah

9. All the municipal corporators of the area should be held responsible for garbage in their area they must take round in their constituency once in a day and ask the officers to take action – Shashi Shah

10. It is important to educate and make them understand the need of cleanliness, waste disposal and climatic issues to all level of people, which is missing. Educated people's ignorance and under-educated people's taken it granted attitude should be removed. Then only the results come from the effort put in. Otherwise it is another way of wasting public money. Make people accountable. Print media, street drama, etc. are the medium suggested to create awareness among people – Dinesan TK

11. It should be made mandatory for shops or kiosks which sell paan, eatery stalls selling tetra pack drinks and wafers namkin packet etc. to maintain dustbins and ensure that the litter is thrown in them. Food carts selling street food are the biggest creators of filth they need to be educated about cleaning the mess before they close. Same for juice shops or carts – Barkha Mathur

12. Unless there is penal action against nagar nigam workers and officers, none of the points mentioned will be implemented correctly. The whole problem in India is that the govt. officials who do not follow and implement the rules are never penalised. e.g. coal scam - businessmen are penalised by cancelling their allocations, but what about people who took the bribes and gave out the blocks? The day they are penalised the officials will start doing what is right – Gopal Sutwala

13. In public markets generally there are either no toilets or are very few. So Market committees or associations should be asked to build necessary numbers of washrooms. Secondly they should be made liable for the cleanliness of the market by asking them to keep required number of cleanliness staff who is paid by market collections and contributions. Government should encourage them by awarding most clean market awards. There should be a website showing status of cleanliness of markets where public can also give them ratings. Government cannot go everywhere so market associations have to be involved in this drive for good result because association members have to come for their business there daily – Pradeep Gupta