Man stops people from dumping waste in Godavari river

Man stops people from dumping waste in Godavari river
By Rohil Patil

NASHIK
: “Pollution is a silent menace which endangers our planet, a planet on which, with its finite resources, we humans dwell. But it is us humans who are causing the downfall of our world. We have corrupted our own lifelines and continue to destroy them for our greed. Unless we take a stand now there will be nothing left to save,” says Chandra Kishore Patil, one of the few who has taken such a stand.

Patil lives near the banks of Godavari in Nashik, Maharashtra. His fight against water pollution began in 2015 when he noticed a butcher throwing waste viscera over a bridge into the river. Troubled by the stench invading his house, he asked the butcher to stop doing so.

The butcher refused and argued that there were others who threw garbage in the river too, would he stop everyone?

“His response made me realize how ignorant people are, so I answered ‘yes I will',” Patil recollects. Since that day, for the past five years, with a whistle and a stick, he has stood guard on the river every single day. Early mornings or late nights, any free time he has he dedicates to stopping people from dumping waste in the river. “People behave rudely when stopped,” he said, adding that “they create a scene or threaten me. But, I am joined by other members of my society who support my endeavor,” he said. Patil’s actions were praised by IFS officer Shwetha Boddu who shared his story via her Twitter handle.

“I saw this man standing on this road the entire day with a whistle in hand to stop people from throwing Dussehra’s ‘holy waste’ in plastic bags into the Godavari at Nashik. Dear Mr. Patil respect!” reads the post by Boddu, showing an image of Patil next to a mound of plastic bags. The tweet received a lot of support and actress Anushka Sharma retweeted it, spreading the message further. “I will keep doing this till my health permits. I don’t believe I will save the world by myself but I know that, together, the people of this world can,” Patil says with confidence.

“My one stand was a rallying point for others to join and start a movement. Now, people take turns guarding the river, and municipality workers come regularly to clean it. All it took was a stand. So everyone must take a stand, a stand for the future and to save our planet,” he said.

The story first appeared in The Times of Bennett, the lab newspaper produced by the first semester students of The Times School of Media.
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