Questions raised over MC’s sanitation arrangements as video of foreign tourist clearing waste outside holy Sikh shrine goes viral

A video of a foreign tourist clearing waste outside the Golden Temple has gone viral, raising questions over the Municipal Corporation’s tall claims of making special sanitation arrangements around the complex of the holy shrine.

The tourist, who had covered his head with a saffron cloth and wore gloves, was seen picking up juice packets, plastic bags, paper plates, cups and packaging material outside shops in the Golden Temple plaza. The Golden Temple plaza and Heritage Street outside Darbar Sahib were developed by then SAD-BJP government in 2016. A mechanical sweeping firm and a dedicated staff were hired for maintain cleanliness in the area. Sweeping machines were used three times a day for keeping the plaza and street clean.

However, the Congress government later ended the contract with the mechanical sweeping firm in 2019 and the dedicated sanitation staff also became redundant.

Over the past few years, the Golden Temple plaza and Heritage Street have been neglected by the Municipal Corporation (MC). Garbage can be seen piled up on the Heritage Street. Numerous illegal vends operate from here in the night. The situation worsens when people eat from these vends and discard waste on the street and plaza. The foreign tourist was seen collecting the same litter from the plaza.

“The government spent Rs 350 crore on the Heritage Street project, which is now in a neglected state. The foreign tourist is doing this as “sewa”, but his actions also expose the attitude of locals who litter and the MC’s failure to make proper sanitation arrangements,” said Davinder Singh, a devotee.

“A number of vends have taken over a major portion of Heritage Street, causing unnecessary inconvenience to tourists and pilgrims. The sanitation conditions of the street are also not up to the mark. The MC should remove these vends and make proper sanitation arrangements here,” said Jaswinder Singh, a resident of Kabir Park. When contacted, Mayor Jatinder Singh Moti Bhatia said, “We are going to deploy dedicated sanitation staff outside Darbar Sahib and Durgiana Temple. Visitors will not face any inconvenience in future.”