In last vacation I have been to my home town in Odisha. On a fine morning I was boarded to a bus connecting Jajpur to Cuttack. I was sitting on a seat next to the window in 4th row. The bus was overloaded, so as a result people were standing on the free space between the two columns of seats. Two college going students were standing next to my seat. The bus was running across Jajpur to collect more passenger. In the mean time one of the two boys bent over me and threw a banana peel out of the window. The peel fell on the footpath next to the road in the mid of the town. I looked towards him and told him " Don't you know about the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan?? If you being a college going student would show such type of ignorance, then what can we expect from the illiterate people". He looked at me for half a minute then took the banana peel from his friend's hand and threw it in the same manner as he did before one minute. I understood "his ego came into picture 
".
On a different occasion I had a similar experience. I was sharing my room with one of my friend who was working in a multinational company. He has visited several countries on corporate trips. So, he had nice ideas on the culture of different countries. He always told me " I will fly to America or any European country to settle down there". I used to ask him " Why? What's wrong in India?". He replied me " India is is a country where there is no traffic rules and no cleanliness". Even, he never went to the nearby daily market, where he could have got cheap and fresh vegitables but he used to do his shopping from the malls. One day while returning from a mall with him, I observed he threw the chocolate wrapper on the road. I told him " The main reason why you are planning to go out of India is that you feel our country is dirty. Then why are you throwing the wraper on the road? Don't you feel that you are also responsible for the current situation of the country? And you are running away from the dirt rather than cleaning your country?" He replied me "S how me one dustbin in 500 meter radius of this place. If it is, then I would take the wrapper and put that into the dustbin ". I understood he did not act intentionally or carelessly.
Now if we analyse the above two paragraphs closely; then actually there are two reason why someone acts like a LITTERBUG...
Litter-bugging has become a habit and reflects in behavior and attitude. This has dipped so deep to blood that the victim never hesitate to rephrase "TOILET" to "TO LET" printed on the wall
"No to Litterbug" attitude should be built from the home only. Parents should teach their kids and behave accordingly. Each room of the home should have dustbin so that it would be a practice for the kids to use dustbin. Make it a habit. Because prevention is better than cure!!!
The circumstances force some one to be a Litterbug. And the "some one" becomes an unintentional Litterbug.
Prevention - Government Responsibilities
- Install Dustbin and build Toilets in every 500 meters distance.
Now the Responsibility of the government for those Litterbugs who are neither a kid nor an unintentional one...
1. Heavy Penalty rules for the violators
2. Ban on Pan Gutkha. It will result in better human health and also a relief from colored spit.
3. Awareness drives just like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and The Great Indian Litterbug
4. Municipality should take corrective actions on the dumped garbage in public places and proper facilities should be there to clean the daily home garbage.
This post is dedicated to an initiative The Great Indian Litterbug by Times of India in association with Indiblogger, an Indian blogging site.
After all, the responsibility to keep our country clean is on the shoulders of all the citizen of India. Read one of my earlier post " If she has taken the responsibility then why not we" and two more social awareness posts " Healthy Child, Healthy Home, Healthy India" and " No Toilet, No Bride!!" promoted by Indiblogger with a vision of making a better India. Hope these posts will help in someway in the revolution of bringing a clean and healthy Bharat.
