Shopkeepers, residents clean New Friends' Colony market

Rotting grocery items and poultry and overflowing sewer lines. These are things that one does not expect at the posh New Friends' Colony Community Centre. But they are what one sees, on reaching there. Mallica Joshi reports.

Rotting grocery items and poultry and overflowing sewer lines.

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These are things that one does not expect at the posh New Friends' Colony Community Centre. But they are what one sees, on reaching there.

The shopkeepers and residents of the area decided to take matters in their hands on Saturday as they launched a cleaning drive.

"The area has been dirty for more than two months now. Discarded vegetables and poultry items are rotting in the open and sewer lines are overflowing. The authorities are just not doing their job," said a shopkeeper in the area.

The participants picked up brooms to do whatever they could to make a difference.

Theatre artists from Asmita Theatre Group also staged a play in the compound.

"We performed the street play in association with a group called Lets Do It Delhi, that looks into cleanliness," said Disha Arora, who lead the theatre troupe.

The residents allege that the sweepers of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) are not doing performing their duty well.

"The sweepers come here but don't do the work properly. They just sprinkle lime on the garbage but do not pick it up," said Shyam Gupta, a shop owner.

"We couldn't do anything about the sewerage, though we regularly sprinkle petrol on the puddles to stop the breeding of mosquitoes," he added.

The problem is not new to the area. Similar clean-up drives have been held earlier as well.

"We conducted another such drive in April this ,year with the group, Duties Over Rights.

The shopkeepers of the area contacted us again this time," Arora added.