Tired of the authorities turning a deaf ear to the locals’ pleas of cleaning a road near Chandanagar, a group of 10 city architects decided to get down and dirty. This was the birth of Hyderabad Rising.
Tauqeer Ahmed, the organiser of the group, says, “We came across the Bengaluru page, The Ugly Indian, a few days ago. We were so inspired by the group’s work that we thought, why don’t we do something similar. So we wrote to the members of The Ugly Indian to find out the procedure, but they didn’t respond because they were busy. So one day, we brain-stormed and decided to start cleaning up.”
One of the group members, Mydhili K. informed the others about a dead-end in a by-lane of Chandanagar. “The road runs behind many residences. It is also at the start of a slum. People kept dumping garbage and no one came forward to clean it. And with the monsoons, the area had only become worse. The sweepers clear the garbage but not very often. So there is a huge pile of rotting stuff that is dumped there. That’s when we decided to take matters in our hands,” she says.
“We just spent Rs 1,700 for the entire process. Rs 1,500 for the material and Rs 200 for the sweepers who cleaned up the place,” says Tauqeer, adding that the garbage was cleaned by the sweepers around the area and the group repainted the walls.
“We took the help of three sweepers and we paid them Rs 200,” adds Mydhili. What are the steps they are taking to ensure that these places remain neat? “For now, in the Chandanagar lane, we have workers cleaning the place every day. We have also tried to use religious symbols in a bid to stop people from littering there,” Tauqeer explains.
Talking about the response their Facebook page has got, Mydhili and Tauqeer add, “We’re inundated with requests as people are really excited about cleaning up their spaces. Now, we have decided to clean up the area outside the Begumpet and Malakpet railway station.”
