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The Jhola Man: Crusading against plastic use with cloth bags & rationale
Not all heroes wear capes: In Barabanki, Ajeet is well-known for distributing cloth bags among people.
pjaiswal@htlive.com
LUCKNOW Just like any Marvel or DC superhero, Barabanki’s ‘Jhola Man’ is also fighting to save the world. While the fictional ones are more interested in fighting mythical Frankenstein monsters, our Barabanki-based superhero has invested himself in the fight against plastic pollution.
Not unlike Clark Kent who carries out his ‘Superman’ duties along with his reporter gig, 51-year-old Ajeet Pratap Singh is leading a crusade against the use of polythene bags while working as a village development officer (VDO) in the Banki block of Barabanki.
Locally, Ajeet is well-known for distributing cloth bags among people. He also spreads awareness about the harms of using plastic bags. In fact, he always keeps a stash of cloth bags in his office almirah and give one to each person coming to his office. This is accompanied by his signature pep talk -- “I presume, on an average, a person uses ten polybags in day. This sturdy cloth bag would last five years. Use this cloth bag, and in five years you will cut down the use of polybags by 18,250”.
Even when he goes out for field work or to his second office at the Panchayat Bhawan in Kashpariya village, he takes a bundle of cloth bags in the boot of his car to distribute among visitors there.
Interestingly, Ajeet funds these cloth bags himself. “I set aside 10% (roughly ₹7,000) of my salary for getting these bags made. In the nearby market, I have four tailors. I give cloth to them to make bags out of them,” said Ajeet Pratap Singh.
He adds, “Over the years, I have developed good relations with several cloth merchants in the town. Though the bags are made out of brand-new cloth but I get them at the cost price from merchants. I procure only the end-cut-pieces of the thaan (cloth rolls) that the merchants anyway sell or discard as scraps.”
Significantly, Ajeet became VDO in 1999 and has been distributing cloth bags among people since 2004 when drives against polythene bags were not as common as they are today. “At that time, Uttarakhand had banned polythene use. I happened to visit Uttarakhand on a recreational family trip there. There, I noticed that wherever I went, leave alone the shops, even the street vendors gave things either in paper-bags or wrapped in newspapers. That’s where I got my inspiration,” he said.
However, times have changed since then and the awareness level has increased now. Unfortunately, the time production of plastic bags has increased simultaneously. Ever since the Swachh Bharat Mission was launched in 2014, Ajeet’s department and seniors have started appreciating his cloth bags efforts.
It is worth mentioning that Ajeet’s love for environment extends beyond just cloth bags. He claims that he has never washes his car. “I have always bought small cars -- again for environmental reasons. And I never wash my car and yet there is no car as clean as mine in their entire locality. Every morning, I wipe my car with a wet mop,” he says.
Ajeet also keeps about a dozen faucets and associated tools and duct tapes in his car’s boot. “Wherever I notice a broken or leaky taps, I change it or seal the leaks. A broken tap, on average, leaks 10 litres of water per minute.”
Additionally, Ajeet says that he has donated his body to Lucknow’s Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital for medical/research use. “When I die, I don’t want my body send up smoke in the air,” he said. Reverting to cloth bags, Ajeet says that he donates about 2,000 bags each month. His family --including a wife and two grown-up children -- also support him in his anti-polythene initiative.
