07 December,2010 06:43 AM IST | | Rinkita Gurav
Free food provided by organisations at Chaitya Bhoomi goes down the drain
Close to 5 lakh devotees gathered at Shivaji Park yesterday to pay homage to Dr B R Ambedkar at Chaitya Bhoomi in Dadar.
A large number of organisations turned up on the occasion to provide food to people free of cost, which lead to increased wastage of food this year.
Along with 80 eatery stalls set up in the park, small organisations brought trucks full of food for the followers who travelled all the way from their villages to the city.
As a tribute to Dr B R Ambedkar, many organisations came forward to serve the food packets for free, but a lot of leftovers could be seen littered around the place
On condition of anonymity, a BMC official said, "The number of trucks bringing in food was far more as compared to last year."
The entire area had foodstuff like rice, upma, bread and cooked vegetables pilfered everywhere.
"There were so many trucks doling out food, many people took whatever came their way and ended up wasting most stuff," said Laxman Bhalerao, a follower from Yavatmal.
Jai Bhim Mandal, an organisation that was serving pulao rice to the people, witnessed people queuing up to take their share of pulao.
One of the members of the mandal said, "We tried our best to serve as much as we could but a lot of leftovers could be seen on the roads." The mandal distributed pulao for the second consecutive day yesterday.
"The pulao was good and we are thankful to the people who provided us with such good food," said one of the followers from Bihar.
A lot of leftovers were also dumped around Shivaji Park.
"There are many organisations that come in with the intention of providing food to the people as a tribute to Dr Ambedkar," said Deputy Municipal Commissioner K S Kshirsagar.
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"It is difficult to keep an account of the trucks coming in to distribute food but our workers have been continuously cleaning up the area."
50
Number of trucks full of garbage that were collected in 48 hours till last evening
13 lakh
Approximate number of devotees this year since Saturday
The clean-up
The BMC has deployed around 500 workers to clean up the area but their progress is slow.
The BMC began the clean up of the peripheral roads from midnight and will clean the entire area, including Shivaji Park, till today evening. The BMC workers will even spray disinfectant in the area.
Also, for the first time, the BMC distributed a booklet listing the details of the event. It had even set up a temporary kiosk at Dadar station to provide information to the followers.
