By Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem, MD

Good things are said to be happening when things move from bad to good, which is very good. But when the reverse happens, to what was once a beautiful and well-groomed city, one cannot help feeling sad over the sorry transformation. This is exactly the way things are going at present in Mysuru, a city once known to be among the most beautiful in its league.

While all those responsible for this trend are completely unmindful of the way they are callously allowing it to happen, the sadder part is that all those of us who are affected by it, are forced to helplessly stand and watch it happening, without being able to get our civic authorities to do justice to the responsibilities they are vested with and are being paid for.

Pre-Dasara makeover

Our city roads are at their worst, although they are poised to start getting their annual, pre-Dasara makeover very soon. But as we all know from our past experience, we can say that the less said about the quality of this repair work, the better. Although done at astronomical costs, it just does not last for more than three months after Dasara is over.

And, over the past few years, most of this work is restricted only to the procession route and the other roads surrounding the Palace. In most other areas, our roads continue to languish in their unkempt state, putting residents and other road users to much difficulty and distress, all through the years.

There are some spots of utter neglect that are potential death traps, waiting to take innocent lives as it happened very unfortunately, two weeks ago. We all know how tragically a family bread-winner, lost his life when his two-wheeler bounced over a protruding manhole. This manhole was repaired only after it took a life and only after SOM drew the attention of our authorities to its dangerous existence. I do not understand why our civic authorities, who collect taxes from us, cannot have a small band of about half a dozen workers entrusted with the responsibility of driving around the entire city on two- wheelers, examining such dangerous spots and recommending corrective action.

Irwin Road in mess

For the past three weeks, the important and extremely busy Irwin Road was in shambles after some UGD work was carried out there and the mess remained uncleared, posing great danger, especially to pedestrians and two-wheeler users. Repair works have started only two days ago. Another very dangerous spot on a very busy road can be seen at the point where the Sawday Road takes off from the RMC Circle. A huge water supply valve chamber stands gaping with its concrete covering slabs broken and displaced, without being replaced.

This accident spot has seen at least half a dozen Dasara processions passing within twenty feet away from it, without having been noticed, let alone set right. We should be thankful that it has so far not claimed any lives, although it is eminently capable of doing so very soon, considering that this place will be full of jostling crowds on every Vijayadashami Day, when people will only be seeing how the procession is going, without seeing where they themselves are going!

Another bane of our once clean and beautiful city are the mounds of garbage we see all around us, across the entire city. Talking of garbage clearance in our city, I must congratulate our City Corporation on having a very efficient, door-to-door, segregated garbage collection system that is working excellently, thanks to its team of workers, who do their work earnestly, every morning, with clockwork regularity.

But very sadly, despite this efficient arrangement, citizens themselves seem to have absolutely no regard towards keeping their surroundings clean and they continue to dump sackful of unsegregated garbage at every open space and even along the roadside, under the cover of darkness.

The result is that every morning, we find these spots teeming with stray dogs and cattle, that pose a great danger to the people around. Although this kind of irresponsible behaviour is punishable under our present laws, they never seem to be implemented, going by how widespread and prevalent this nefarious practice is.

Something needs to be done on a war-footing, without which our whole city is in danger of becoming a huge and stinking garbage dump, polluting the environment. The only way to do this is to install CCTV cameras to catch the offenders and levy heavy and  deterrent penalties on them.

While talking of environmental pollution, I would like to point out here that while our Traffic Police conduct regular checks on cars across the city to see if they have passed pollution control tests, no one checks trucks and buses like wise. In this matter, our KSRTC buses are undoubtedly the worst offenders. To cite an interesting example, there is a city bus with the registration number KA 19 F 3372 that runs on Route No. 174. I encounter it every single day, on my way to the Karanji Lake for my morning walk and every time it accelerates out of a bus stop, the whole bus itself disappears momentarily, in the huge plume of thick black smoke that it emits. To verify what I am saying, our RTO authorities would do well to summon this Airbus for an inspection immediately, before the KSRTC authorities decide to ground it temporarily, to  avoid embarrassment!

Pollution & Kambala buffaloes

Carrying this discussion on pollution forward, the level of pollution in and around Mysuru, although apparently harmless for us Mysureans, certainly seems to be bad for buffaloes, especially the imported ones. I say this because there was a recent report that the Kambala buffaloes that would be arriving in our city very soon, to regale us during Dasara, would be provided drinking water, imported in tankers all the way from our coastal region, which is their natural home. This is somebody’s brilliant idea, apparently to prevent infections in them, due to their consumption of our local water.

Some people do not seem to have seen the very muddy and grimy water that runs off garbage dumps into the ponds, which buffaloes drink and loll around in, all day long, across the length and breadth of our Karavali regions. Even if it is true that those buffaloes are so susceptible to water-borne infections, a better, less expensive and less cumbersome idea, would be to install RO water purifiers near our newly created Kambala arena, so that they can drink it fresh and pure, right off the tap.

And, if the authorities are generous enough to allow it, as an additional benefit, this arrangement will also perhaps give a taste of what safe drinking water should taste like, to the thousands of our poor villagers who throng there for the show, who have sadly been drinking only muddy pond water in their homes, like the Kambala buffaloes do, in  their own homes!

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