Emulate your MG Road colleague, residents dare health inspectors

BENGALURU: Santosh Raj M, the Shanthalanagar junior health inspector who swung into action in the small hours of Wednesday to ensure residents in and around MG Road, Brigade Road and Church Street woke up to a spickand-span 2020 has turned a hero. Resident welfare associations (RWAs) elsewhere in the city are now throwing their respective health inspectors a challenge to fix their streets.
Raj and his staff had trooped on to the hub of New Year celebrations within hours of the revelry and cleared the three-km stretch of garbage. He had also dared The Ugly Indian (TUI), a volunteer group of anonymous citizens, to find black spots on the three roads. TUI was surprised as it couldn’t see even one.
Soon after TOI published the New Year feat of Raj and his colleagues on Thursday, impressed residents elsewhere in the city began challenging their health inspectors to follow suit. The feat and the challenge have been trending online.
Dr Hemant Kumar Agrawal, a resident of Domlur, said it’s very important to challenge BBMP officials to emulate their better-performing colleagues as at least that way they will start taking things seriously. “It should become a Bengaluru-wide challenge!” Agrawal said, adding: “Daily, we don’t come across such feats but it’s very important for BBMP to be challenged to see changes in the city.”
Priyanka Pillai, a resident of CV Raman Nagar, said all health inspectors should follow Raj and make him their role model. “If one health inspector could clean so much of trash, our health inspector can also take responsibility of the ward and do the same,” she said.
Somashekar S, junior health inspector of JP Park ward, said he’d be more than happy to accept the challenge. “I want to beautify black spots and ensure waste gets segregated. I would like to take up the challenge,” he said. Somashekar, however, added only health inspectors can’t be blamed for the state of affairs and people too need to do their bit to keep the city clean.
Harish P, a resident of Cubbonpet, had another point to make. “Firstly, we need to find out who our health inspector is and then think of challenging him. The Palike needs to hand over a list of health inspectors so that residents can bring problems to their notice,” he said.