It’s quite heartwarming to witness citizens coming together to give litterers a taste of their own medicine. Recently, two men were made to drive all the way back 80km on a Karnataka road, just to pick up pizza boxes which they threw on the highway. And now, the coastal city of Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh has come up with a unique Return Gift policy to teach a lesson to litterers. Under this initiative, households that dump their garbage on the road instead of handing it to sanitary workers will be given back their own garbage at their doorstep. Sounds like a good gift?
Kakinada In Andhra Pradesh Now Has A Return Gift Policy For Households Dumping Garbage On Roads
Swapnil Dinkar Pundkar, Kakinada Municipal Corporation’s commissioner came up with a brilliant idea of “Return Gift” initiative to teach civic sense to locals. Households that dump garbage on the road instead of handing it to sanitary workers, will receive their own garbage as a return gift. This initiative aims to make violators realise their mistake. And they will henceforth not repeat it.
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KMC has started an initiative of Return Gift by which the garbage will be given back to the citizens who are not giving it to the sanitary workers and instead littering on roads and in drains. #ReturnGift@SwachhBharatGov @Secretary_MoHUA @SBMGAP @AndhraPradeshCM @SwachSurvekshan pic.twitter.com/RQAyh3Ivg0
— Kakinada Municipal Corporation (@kakinada_KMC) November 7, 2020
Pundkar informed NDTV, “We have been doing awareness drives (on the correct way to dispose garbage to make the city clean), but some people refuse to follow the rules. Whoever is found littering on the road, the garbage will be collected and sent back to their house as a deterrent after due verification. With this “return gift”, we want to tell them that this is a wrong practice. The city authority assigned 900 sanitary workers to collect garbage from households. Despite this, many people from Kakinada refused to comply to these rules. Many awareness drives conducted on the same issue went to deaf ears. That’s when Pundkar resorted to this unique “Return Gift” initiative.
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Kakinada To Get 100 Tippers Instead Of Pushcarts For Garbage
The Municipal Commissioner also revealed to TOI “I am planning to make Kakinada dumper bins free as people are not placing the garbage in them as they are big. We are trying to bring in about 100 tippers to replace pushcarts which are now being used to carry garbage.” Well, we applaud this unique “Return Gift” initiative. It’s very much needed. Infact we hope other cities also come up with such unique yet struct measures to bring civic sense and responsibility amongst citizens. Meanwhile, check out Bangalore’s distinct Zero Waste Juice Bar, which tackles waste management and health issues in the city.