The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court on Monday heard a matter of suo motu cognizance of the issue of overall cleanliness, including the city’s weekly markets.
The Division Bench of Justices Sunil B. Shukre and Avinash Gharote observed that there can be no denying the fact that it is the experience of a common man, including many advocates, officers, and persons occupying high positions in society that unhygienic conditions continue to exist in the vegetable markets of the city.
According to the High Court, the sanitation model has been taken very seriously in Madhya Pradesh. There is a good system of weekly markets, door-to-door garbage collection and waste management.
“It is time for the Nagpur Municipal Corporation to take this issue seriously, especially when, the pandemic of Covid-19 is far from being over rather is once again resurfacing and probably with a greater vengeance. In a State like Madhya Pradesh, it is common knowledge, detailed action plan has been made to keep the cities, towns and villages absolutely clean and the public awareness campaign, appears to be one of the major steps of such plan of action. Here in Nagpur, as of now, no such detailed plan of action has been made,” the court remarked.
The High Court has asked the Commissioner of Municipal Corporation, Nagpur to consider preparing a detailed plan of action, perhaps by emulating or modifying upon the plan of action or model adopted b Madhya Pradesh. “The Municipal Commissioner may also consult the expert agencies including NIRRI and local NGOs for preparation of such plan of action and also its effective implementation. We would grant three weeks’ time to the Municipal Commissioner, Nagpur for this purpose,” the Court ordered.
It is pertinent to note that there are 10 authorized and 23 unauthorized markets in the city. With the expansion of the city’s population, the number of markets is also increasing. Dirt emanating from these markets causes many problems for local citizens. In such a situation, in 2016, the High Court had filed a suo motu public interest petition taking cognizance of this problem.
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