Making a clean sweep

Back to Basics

Passers-by slowed their vehicles to gape at the strange sight: a group of citizens were picking up garbage instead of littering!

Walking around with yellow masks and transparent gloves, the volunteers for ‘Adopt-A-Mile’, an innovative citizen’s movement to beautify the City, hardly noticed the stares and whispers. 

Heaps of black garbage bags and buckets of paint lay on the side of the road as the tedious process of cleaning up the footpath went underway. 

The stretch of pavement in front of Cauvery Emporium in MG Road was tidied up by the group, who have been known to choose various parts of the City to clean over the holiday’s. 

Girish Krishnan, one of the founders of the group, says, “We all come to MG Road and Brigade Road so often but no one bothers to clean it up. We decided we wanted to bring the beauty back to it so that other people can replicate this.” There were around 600 volunteers who had signed up for the project, which started at 8 am and went on till 1 pm. 

There are two ways the project works: either a corporate or the citizens adopt a mile of road in the City and they can help make it a cleaner and greener environment. But the job doesn’t end there - the group makes sure the stretch is looked after even after it is cleaned so that it isn’t sent back to its original state. 

With the backing of the BBMP, the initiative has been rapidly spreadingly amongst the corporate sector. Elias Williams, who works for Accenture, said that he decided to be a part of this drive because he found it very interesting. 

“We are accountable for our city and our space, and we should keep it clean,” he added. The group started by cleaning the pavement, then they repainted the median and the walls and added small plants around the area. “We added a urinal nearby because people keep relieving themselves on the wall here,” said Girish. 

Ravishankar, who was there to help, said, “It is easy to complain and not do anything, but we need to do our bit for society, even it’s just a little bit.” According to Girish, 26 corporates have stepped forward to help in the maintenance and upkeep of the pavements.