Patna, one of the oldest continuously inhabited place in the world, a centre of culture and once the greatest city on earth, as described by Megasthenes (the Greek ambassador to India), started losing its glory in last few decades. Because of the increase in population and loose administration, the city was falling into disarray. According to the 2011 census, approximately 1.68 million people reside in Patna which leads to chaotic traffic, low-quality lifestyle and unimaginable garbage.
Around 900 metric tonnes of garbage is generated in the city daily. Patna also stands high when it comes to dust. It was ranked 262 in cleanliness in India (According to Swachh Survekshan 2017 Rankings).
The above statistics are some of the reasons that Patna needs to give cleanliness a priority. Realising the same, Patna Municipal Corporation started a number of initiatives to eradicate the evil of dirtiness and give the people of Patna the best possible living experience.
Door to Door garbage collection, waste management plant to produce energy from the waste, re-colouring of road dividers, footpaths, golambers, etc are some of them. Adding up to the list, painting of numerous location of Patna with Mithila and other art forms is a great initiative to rejuvenate our city and turn it into a beautiful place.
Yes, you heard it right more than 30 locations around the historical city of Patna is getting a makeover by cleaning, revamping and painting the different areas. The initiative has been taken by Patna Municipal Corporation to turn the city into a clean and beautiful place. The project has been going on since last three months and is estimated to be completed soon. More than ten teams of over 500 people have been given the responsibility to complete the task. Some of these painters are professionals like artists who are invited from Madhubani whereas a large number of these artists are students, studying in Patna Art College.
“The project is aimed to eradicate the habit of people who urinate here and there, and change their mentality to keep our city clean and healthy” – Vishal Mishra, artist.
The paintings depict many religious and historical events related to Bihar like wedding of Hindu Lord Ram and Sita, the tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh who was born in Patna and many more. Apart from that, these wall paintings also carry message of cleanliness in pictorial forms. These paintings encourage the citizens of the city to adopt a clean and non-polluting way of living and to keep their surroundings clean.
The initiative of painting the city with Mithila and other art forms has got a very good response from the people of Patna. It has become a selfie spot. You can find people taking selfies with the wall and uploading it into the different social media platforms with pride and joy. Better late than never, we must appreciate the great initiative of Patna Municipal Corporation and hope that our city will very soon be transformed into a kind of paradise.
While the administration has given us these beautiful walls around the city, the responsibility of keeping these walls this way lies upon us, the general public of Patna. We need to be more sincere towards cleanliness and must let go of the habit of littering here and there and spitting pan or gutkha on the walls. Public urination continues to be a menace in the city. While the city administration needs to increase the number of public toilets to fight this menace, the people too will have to change and use the available facilities. We hope that the beauty and cleanliness of this city will last forever with the joint efforts of the administration and the public.
Note: The article was first written by Satyam Kumar and published on patnabeats.com. It has been reproduced here with due permission.
