Tag Archives: dadar

Dustbins walking up to you?!! We knew this day would come.

We remember writing a sarcastic piece last year on our collective inability to walk up to a dustbin and throw garbage in it. An excerpt from the article below:

Bins are not capable of walking up to you
(we are hopeful that with growing technological advancements such a day would come as well :) #IndiansNeedWalkingBins)

But boy!, little did we know that the Mumbai city administration was dead serious about the prospect of having dustbins walk up to you. This is why we say that contrary to popular perception, our administration is not that averse to all these fancy ideas.

Don’t believe it? Then read this..

BMC is planning to introduce Dustbin Robots all over the city. They have already installed one for a pilot study in Dadar.

Dustbin Robot in Mumbai!
Dustbin Robot in Mumbai!

The dustbin can travel 350 meters after being charged for four hours. It boasts of nine sensors and will be able to sense human presence . It can collect 80 kgs of trash in a single run.

Some people (like me ;)) would smirk at the idea and say “uth jaayegi ye ek raat mein hi“. The dustbin apparently has a three tier security system. f the dustbin is moved of the assigned area, it will shut down and an alarm will intimate authorities about its removal from the said zone. It doesn’t end there though as once the dustbin shuts down, text messages will be sent automatically to three emergency cellphones, informing them of its location. Whoaa!!

Now, of course, it doesn’t look as fancy as this Italian one called Dustbot below, but for Indian conditions it’s definitely a great start! What say you?

DustCart Robot in Italy, photo courtesy: alternativeconsumer.com
DustCart Robot in Italy, photo courtesy: alternativeconsumer.com

Till the time this robot comes to your city, do report all garbage related issues on www.ChangeBhai.in!

@BMC, tab tak puraani dustbins hi khaali kardo bhai. Check hundreds of issues similar to this latest one we received on ChangeBhai, Issue#A0563, “Garbage bin outside society gate”.

How to Give Ganpati Bappa the Best Welcome This Year?

Ganpati Bappa Morya, Pudchya Varshi Laukar Yaa!

(Translation: Glory to the Lord Ganpati! Come again soon next year)

We invite Lord Ganpati to come back to visit us year after year, but shouldn’t we ensure his trip is comfortable and worth it. :)

By the way, the Ganpati Mandals in Mumbai mean serious business this time and to ensure our beloved ‘Bappa’ has a smooth ride on the Visarjan day (September 18), they have given a list of 2113 potholes and a deadline of September 16 to their municipal corporation to fix them. They say if they fail to do so, then all the mandals will use their reserve funds and carry out pothole-repair work. Wah! What spirit!

Image Courtesy: Rediff
Image Courtesy: Rediff

This was about a case of ‘good spirit’. A case study from ChangeBhai’s issue database about ‘not-so-good intent’ below:

Check out these issues uploaded by two ChangeBhai users:

Issue# A0429 ‘Huge Pothole outside SaiPalaceHotel’

Before
Before
After
After

Issue# A0418 ‘new potholes on recently made road’

Before

Before

 We are awaiting post resolution image of issue# A0418 from the user

In both the cases, the roads were newly made and had developed potholes shortly after they were repaired. Of course, we got the potholes repaired but the question is ‘How long will they last?’ Having worked with them closely, we can see that BMC is trying to do what they can at the moment, but the backlog of repairs and resource constraint are two issues which make the problem bigger and bigger with each passing day. Koi Sujhaav?

And ya, tab tak,koshish jaari rakhte hain . Do upload similar issues on www.ChangeBhai.in to ensure Bappa’s trip is totally worth it, this time. :) Ganpati Bappa Morya!!