Fri, 29 Mar, 2024

Rules Ruled Out

By Giriraj Khatri

The government has announced many new rules to be implemented to make the public places cleaner. This certainly made the general public happy. The government banned smoking and consuming alcoholic products in the public places. Along with it, dustbin was made compulsory in all public vehicles and throwing and spitting from the vehicle windows was prohibited. The vehicles older than 20 years will be disallowed to ply on roads. Similarly, microvan and tempos which are comparatively smaller in size will be seen no more on the road. There is so much pleasant feeling in reading this but all these rules have been ruled out as they never came into strict implementation. Consuming alcohol and smoking in public places was just a void announcement. You can see people smoking in parks, bus stands and even inside the public buses. When requested not to smoke then there comes a heated voice “Is this place your father’s property?” There are people smoking in front of no smoking banner. Although, the government had deployed police personnel to check this incident but they are seen nowhere these days. Consuming alcohol in public place is rarely seen or never seen but the incidents of hooliganism and fights in public places after drinking alcohol is often observed. It’s a regular site to see people throwing plastic, fruit peels, and paper from the vehicle windows. To check this activity, the government came up with a rule to make dustbin compulsory in public vehicles. This was also ruled out. Even the popular public transportation services like Mahanagar do not have dustbins inside them. During the initial days of the announcement there were but just like police personnel responsible for controlling smoking and consuming alcohol, it vanished. All the public vehicles are so crowded that it will be difficult to find a space to land a foot, let alone the dustbin. Spitting out is a simpler act in comparison to people spitting inside the vehicle and spitting out after chewing paan and betel nut. The government has announced to ban small vehicles and vehicles older than 20 years after February. The government has been trying to implement this since past decade but has never succeeded and there are doubts about it this time also. The talk between government and transport entrepreneurs have failed to bear fruits although the deadline is approaching soon. The government’s lack of study and research before announcing the rule, lack of presence of strong governance at the local level, and timid citizens who do not want to obey are the chief reason for rules being ruled out. Along with it, the absence of rigid consequences for violation of these rules and lack of continuity for implantation are the chief reason behind the new rules being a merry announcement.