Open house: Instead of acting just before elections, shouldn’t political parties work all the year through?

Poll time phenomenon is not required

No matter how good a politician shows himself/herself to be, their true efforts and productivity are only visible during elections when they effortlessly work for the masses at a rapid speed to fetch votes. The tough truth about politicians is that their real contribution to society and the shouldering of their responsibilities primarily occur a month or two prior to elections. This is a formidable phenomenon as it not only brings the state to a halt but also reflects the indifference of the people in power. As the election season approached, AAP workers launched their campaign at the Model Town garbage dump, led by Cantonment constituency in-charge Rajwinder Kaur Thiara and Ward number 33 councillor candidate Aruna Arora. The group made a bold statement by tearing down the dump's boundary wall, with Thiara declaring, "The AAP delivers what it promises." The event aimed to rally support for Aruna Arora, a former Congress member, now with the AAP, to gain political benefits, emphasising her experience as they sought to win local votes in the municipal elections. This is a pretty classic example of how the leaders and candidates of Punjab started taking immediate and tremendous steps, specifically only around the time of the civic elections. Undoubtedly, these double-faced acts of the administration benefit the masses but ponder over the outcome if the government stayed active all the year round. Unfortunately, elected representatives stop working for the betterment of society so that they can show up at the time of elections to woo the voters. On the contrary, politicians should be productive all the year round and focus on topics as per the need of the hour and not based on when the elections are to be held in order to make cities like Jalandhar and Amritsar a smart, clean and green city.

Lakshit Jindal

Solve pending issues, go for hi-tech solutions

Approaching the voters during the recent civic body elections, the political parties and their candidates have made all kinds of promises to seek electoral favour. As usual, the contestants vowed to address the lingering civic issues, once elected to power. Fearing public wrath over non-fulfillment of the demand to remove the waste sites from residential areas, the boundary wall of some dumps in Jalandhar were quickly demolished just before the polls. The administration cleared the pending projects just before the polls and initiated the work to remove legacy waste from the garbage dumps. One wonders why such work is not undertaken with same alacrity after the elections? Despite public resentment from time to time, there has been no proper management of garbage in the cities. Huge mounds of domestic and industrial waste lie piled up across the localities and in vacant places due to irregular transportation. It is often thrown open or burnt along the roads and streets, which gives a shabby look to the residential colonies and pollutes the environment. Besides illegal encroachments, issues like scarce parking space, broken roads, non-functional street lights, choked sewers and waterlogging in cities continue to haunt residents without any credible solutions. Obviously, the need is to address vital public concerns by integrating sustainable management techniques into the fabric of urban planning. More specifically, various civic problems should be prioritised for mitigating the problem in a time-bound manner through concrete planning and required monetary support. For solid waste management, however, technology adoption is an essential factor, involving bio-waste dumps located away from the residential areas. It is also imperative to introduce strict measures for segregation of domestic waste by all the households so as to facilitate faster and easier decomposition. Evidently, when many items from the waste such as plastics, metals etc can be recycled for reuse, and the residual mass can serve as a useful manure for organic farming, unscientific burning of bio-mass has to be curbed to prevent environmental pollution. Taking proactive steps, the civic administration should streamline the execution of projects aimed at upgrading civic infrastructure for improving the quality of life of citizens.

Nirmaljit Singh Chatrath

Don’t link Waste disposal to polls

All of a sudden, the Municipal Corporation seems to have woken up from a deep slumber and we can see random activities all over the place. The overgrown branches of trees which hitherto were a major hindrance to the commuters are being shorn off mercilessly, leaving the trees bald. Where were the authorities earlier when these very branches brushed against the open windows of buses, may be causing minor injuries to some passengers? The dividers on the roads are being given a makeover once again in yellow and black, obviously a single coat just to brighten up the roads. Waste management suddenly gains a lot of attention and the Municipal Corporation seems to be in an overdrive and has sprung into action, bringing down old four-walled designated areas to collect the waste, and have promised to deal with the garbage dump! How often have we heard this day in and day out for the last 15 years? Is it once again an election gimmick? Every party has kept the agenda of waste management right up there on their list of promises. Thank god, they are at least admitting that it is a major issue for the city residents. Almost 25 years of the 21st century have passed and with increasing population, the waste generation is also increasing by leaps and bounds with zero attention to its efficient management. The city residents also should play an active role in segregating the waste which will help the waste-picker to dump the garbage in the designated areas. The Municipal Corporation has to move mountains if they are really serious on finding a solution to manage the garbage efficiently. Unless they have a concrete plan in mind, it's just another bubble which will burst as soon as the elections are done and dusted.

Manveen Mann

Apply pressure on councillors

Promises are fulfilled to woo the voters when elections are near, to gain their confidence and to get the best results in their favour. Voters often get trapped as public memory is short. They remember their latest achievements and want to show that they are capable of delivering the best results. They always delay their action to time it with the ending of the term to show that the work has been done memorably in public mind. Bureaucracy is at fault, they don't clear the files. If they are cleared, chances are that money will change hand and the job never done. The public does not use its power, they can put pressure for their demands which are ignored. They should choose wisely who is loyal for the party and who can be helpful after winning. They never show their face after winning the elections because their job is done and the interest served. This is the irony of our country.

Shashi Kiran

Sitting on projects has become a habit

Factors like lack of will power and vote-bank politics stop political parties from acting with the same alacrity all the year through. Secondly, our political parties are in the habit of lingering on public projects until elections come. Last, but not the least, had our political parties in Amritsar seriously worked for the improvement of the city since Independence, then it would have been the best city of Punjab today, perhaps even better than Chandigarh.

Sanjay Chawla