In all the years of
progress made and civilization achieved, it would at least be expected that
people would have the basic traits of a civilized and educated population
pegged down effortlessly.
Let’s talk about the
household trash or waste which is to be dumped in the right manner and in the
right places to begin with. The simple act would be an understanding, a
civilized person has established within oneself automatically following an unwritten
law that guides the person from within, because he or she is no longer in touch
with the days of yore when barbaric traditions gave free rein for anyone to go
out-and-open with every activity of life.
Recently, the municipality
handed over its waste collection side of works to a private company who won the
bid through an open bidding.
Perhaps, that’s the issue
then, sadly even among the supposedly educated lot in the capital city. Word
out and doing the rounds is that the private company because it is ‘private’ is
not completely in the waste business out of the goodness of their hearts and
surely profit is to be made and that would be their sole motive.
In the weeks after the
private company started its functions, people started questioning their every
small mode of operations. For instance the workers of the company who visited
individual households distributed waste bags and made requests to one and all
on how to segregate their wastes and collect it in the big bag.
It is now, almost the
express opinion among many that the company instead of taking charge of things
has plotted to push down their part of the work to the citizens. They believe, if the waste is to be collected
then it shouldn’t be individuals’ work to sort through baby diapers, paper
waste, plastic bottles or glass bottles etc.
It is natural to think
like that if one should start out thinking with a pre-decided end to an
observation. In this case it would be that of the private entity that one has
decided in heart and soul to be functioning lazily and only for easy profit.
However, if the same head
puts on the thinking hat blessed with basic common sense, perspectives would be
a lot less skewed and the picture painted would be much bigger and a lot
different.
Collecting waste is not
really on top of the charts for any business prospective hunt, but ‘someone has
to do it,’ as they say. Up and until now, the initiative was solely public and
the government’s, so the municipality ploughed through the deluge of ever
mounting waste year after year.
Now, with growing need for
private participation to do the old dirty business in new and cleaner ways,
things have evolved to where they have thus reached.
It would be general
understanding that to set anything in motion and keep it going, a little income
has to be earned to keep the process in motion. Obviously, the private waste
collector needs to be entitled to that secluded pie just as naturally.
If a society is to
progress and a nation is to advance, these are the frontiers that need
cooperation from the general public without the ever-present and innate need to
place everything under a microscope of what in this case is absurdly gratuitous
cynicism.
It’s a common outcry that
private sector doesn’t get enough public (government) push; well, here’s our
collective chance to see how things go when the private gets its public shot.
Regardless of what grand
and giant leaps may be made by the nation as a whole, if at individual levels
thinking is as small and restrictive of the greater good, the precious
wisdom and the bigger picture, no level
of advancement can fully or truly benefit in any slight proportions.
It can be said that years
of evolution has at least taught everyone uniformly to queue up (without
complaints) at bills payment counters, wait silently on token numbers at banks
and sincerely honor the orderly queue at hospitals to fill prescriptions
thereby displaying civilized behavior. But do we really want to establish that
all we have learnt and absorbed from the years is just to form a queue.
Portal to opinions are
open!
Published as Editorial for Business Bhutan on January 17, 2015
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