The Transformation at Saket

We Mean To Clean shares experience of their Saket Spotfix on November 13, 2016

The morning of November 13, 2016, Sunday, saw the team assemble at Saket. For the uninitiated, Saket is probably one of Delhi’s busiest localities. It houses residential neighbourhoods, swanky malls and even a few tourist locations. And thus, inescapably, has a very challenging public sanitation situation. Apart from the usual problem that most of this city faces - open, unsegregated municipal waste disposal spots, sporadic and spotty collection of this waste and public apathy - Saket has a few problems of its own.

One of these problems became evident when representatives of the Max Super Specialty Hospital at Saket got in touch with us about a location right outside their premises, on the main road cutting through Saket. A designated dhalao (local garbage collection area) had been transformed into a large open dumping yard; to add to that, massive amounts of construction debris - referred to as malwa colloquially - were being thrown on the roadside, regularly and with impunity. 

In a pleasant break from the usual, a substantially large turnout was in place that day. Post a few morning refreshments arranged for the team by the kind officials at Max - we hoped to begin working. The plan in place was to clear the area along with help from the municipal authorities - both the Public Works Department (PWD) and the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) had been contacted prior to us converging at the spot - and beautify it with paint, street art and the placement of potted plants and benches.

Immediately, we were confronted with the much-documented administrative problem that often plagues this city - the multiplicity of agencies. Teams from the PWD reached the spot with three trucks and a JCB excavator - and began clearing the area of the construction debris. The garbage, however, remained untouched by them - because it was, as they said, the SDMC’s job; the SDMC in turn, was nowhere to be seen. Regardless, we divided ourselves into teams - one began coating the wall with the first coat of terra cotta, the other began painting the pots a striking hue of yellow. Soon enough, the initial paint job was complete and the team - now thinned down to about 15 - reassembled after a short break for brunch.

We decided on the plan to beautify the wall by creating an appealing geometric pattern. Simultaneously, the PWD team completed clearing the area, and after about an hour more of toil - we could say that a transformation had been effected.

Subsequently, as the teams were placing potted plants along the wall, we noticed a car being parked at the space that had just been cleared of debris, right beside our wall. A sign that this transformation is going to be more continual than our own pessimistic expectations indicate? Only time will tell. What we can definitely say about the experience is well-described through one observation: throughout the day, a number of passers-by stopped to ask about what was going on - working on a location at a major intersection in Saket, this was something we knew would happen and were excited about. Although the results of the work we did that day are yet to be seen through the prism of sustainability - clearly, an increased awareness in Saket is one tangible outcome that has already been achieved.

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