Surprise raid nets spitters and litterbugs

KOLKATA: What is common to a bank officer, restaurant owner, hawker and housewife? For the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, the answer is simple _ all of them litter the city either callously or consciously.
A KMC conservancy team, which went on a cleanliness drive in and around its headquarters at S.N. Banerjee Road on Wednesday, found a cross section of society completely ignorant of civic rules regarding cleanliness.It was ‘policing’ time for mayor-in-council member (conservancy) Rajib Deb as he led his team of chief engineer Arun Sarkar and other senior officials and caught offenders red handed.
The team set out from the civic body headquarters at 4.45 pm and almost immediately caught a young man spitting on the road. He was warned and let off after he apologised. As the team advanced, hawker Jamil Ahmed was seen spitting on the pavement. After a rebuke, a chastened Ahmed promised he would not repeat his mistake. While the civic team took these cases in their stride, it was 50-year-old S.K. Chakraborty, a Reserve Bank employee, who gave them a shock.
Chakraborty was using the pavement near Manohardas Tarag as a toilet. On being caught, Chakraborty pleaded that he was a diabetic. On Lindsay Street, KMC officials forced Mantu Singh, a young restaurant owner, to sweep the roads as snacks were found littered near the restaurant even after the KMC had installed a trash bin However, no offenders could be fined since the KMC did not have proper papers.