Hisar admn in overdrive to hide civic issues ahead of PM’s visit
The freshly painted walls with graffiti, garbage dumping sites transformed into cleanest points, spotless streets, hurriedly pruned trees, flawless traffic management and sanitation workers collecting waste from homes.
The sight in Hisar is an apparent indication of the overdrive of the local authorities, including the district administration and the Municipal Corporation to ensure to put everything in order. It seems that the civic machinery has awakened from deep slumber.
It is in fact a prelude to the visit of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is scheduled to inaugurate the airport on April 14. The irony is hard to miss. The ongoing frantic beautification and cleanliness drive is a glaring reminder of how the basic amenities and facilities were missing from the town.
It’s a big question that why authorities wake up to cleanliness and other civic necessities only during the VVIP visits and pay only lip service to these issues otherwise. This seems to be the case in Hisar ahead of the PM’s visit.
Notably, the Hisar MC, which has an overall budget proposal of Rs 365 crore, has now sought another Rs 1.72 crore only for cleanliness and beautification for the PM’s visit. Besides, the overall arrangements are expected to cost about Rs 10 crore, with Rs 6.24 crore going to tents and other related works, for the rally.
However, for years, residents of Hisar have been grappling with everyday issues—uncollected garbage, open drains, stray cattle roaming freely in markets and streets, and poorly maintained parks and open spaces. Civic problems are not new to the town, yet they remain unresolved despite repeated complaints from residents and municipal corporation members.
Apparently, a high-profile visit triggered the authorities into action. Otherwise, these problems continue to fester, buried under layers of bureaucratic apathy and inter-departmental blame games, says Krishan Singla, a Congress leader who contested the previous mayoral election but lost to BJP’s Praveen Popli.
Stressing this overdrive will fetch no concrete outcome, he said: “Until authorities begin to treat every day with the same urgency as the day of a VVIP visit, Hisar’s aspirations of becoming a model city will remain hollow slogans.”
Hisar has adequate representation in the government with Ranbir Gangwa as PWD Minister and previously Kamal Gupta as Urban Local Bodies Minister in the last BJP government. Gupta in fact had promised to make Hisar the cleanest city in Haryana. Yet, the town has seen a steady decline in its Swachh Survekshan rankings — falling from 105 in 2020 to a dismal 194 in the most recent survey. These figures are not just statistical data; they are an indictment of the systemic failure to prioritize civic development.
In fact, the neglect of civic amenities was a major issue during the Assembly elections; sitting MLA and minister Kamal Gupta lost the election to the Independent Savitri Jindal. He was mocked for lofty promise to turn Hisar into Indore, the city that has dominated India’s cleanliness rankings for years.
While Hisar’s residents have battled flooded roads, a defunct drainage system and erratic waste disposal, the administration seems more focused on cosmetic upgrades. In a surreal twist, large sums of public money have been spent not on fixing drainage or sewage systems, but on building replicas of national monuments like Red Fort at Tulsi Chowk, Arjuna Rath, Chandrayaan model, India Gate, etc.
Amit Grover, a former councillorm recently launched Vikas Dhundo Yatra — a journey to “search for development” in a town where it is conspicuously missing.
Haryana Tribune