The idea of a beautiful community is not only about the things inside or the people living inside them, but also everything that is happening around. It is almost always, a community becomes stronger when both the outside and inside initiatives are taken into consideration. We at ADDA are absolute supporters of this idea and today’s stories are about the wonderful initiatives taken by two of the Winners of the ADDA Rise High Awards.
Day 2
Category: Initiatives outside the gate
Winners: Rolling Hills, Hyderabad, Palm Greens, Ahmedabad
Rolling Hills is located in a high traffic area, with both residential and office spaces.
So, there is always a movement of people and vehicles around the gate. The stretch in front of Rolling Hills (facing another apartment community Ramky Towers) was in a pathetic state with several illegal roadside shops, boulders/debris dumped overnight from construction activities elsewhere, lots of trash and people using it as an open toilet. All the debris and sewage water comes together through the stormwater channels and gets stuck on the grills, leading to all the sewage mixed rainwater overflowing on the community roads. This caused not just terrible stink and inconvenience but was detrimental to the health of residents. This was a standard affair during monsoons, especially after heavy rains.
This was not just an eyesore but also a huge security risk for the community.
What did the community do?
Firstly they cleared the stretch of debris with JCBs, prepped it for the plantation. During HarithaHaram, the residents went with a team of 2 supervisors and 16 garden staff to load 3-4 trips of 500 tree saplings totally in the vehicles, planted all of them in a single day – 4 rows of plants on the roadside. Then to prevent the roads from being used as parking space and people trampling over the plants, they quickly fenced the entire area and fought with the roadside shops to shift places. The entire stretch is free of miscreants, car parking, shops, trash, debris and filled with slowly maturing trees now.
The roads leading into Rolling Hills now have bollards for dividers (upgraded as of July 2018 to concrete dividers) which regulates unruly traffic to an extent and the legally disputed area on the other side of the road is cleared of all debris and trash. This was done with the complete help and support of Traffic Police Department upon strong demand and request over several meetings with Rolling Hills residents. Traffic police have also provided jackets and batons for the security guards to regulate the traffic for easy entry and exit by the residents during peak traffic hours.
To address the sewage on the road issue, we reached out to the local MP through our contacts and explained our situation, who gave a letter addressed to the GHMC Commissioner which was submitted to main, zonal and circle offices. They also met the circle Commissioner as a team to press upon our issues and got the Circle and Zonal Commissioners to do a site visit. A notice was later issued by GHMC to the Smondo management enforcing them to address the issue by constructing chambers with grills. They followed up with Smondo for several months to finally get it done.
With the recent heavy rains, so far the residents of Rolling Hills had a sewage-free road in Rolling Hills, thanks to the constructive collaborative activities with Government, Municipality and the neighbors.
Palm Greens, Ahmedabad also has a similar story to share!
They were facing the issue of waterlogging and flood situation outside the society main gate, main road area and on the entire stretch. They tried raising the issue with municipal councillors and MLA, but there was no response.
Then, they highlighted the issue several times on Times of ᠌India Citizen Reporter platform and the same was published in TOI twice. This finally helped in having the patchwork on the main Road outside our society and other neighbouring society.
The community finally took an initiative of converting the waterlogged dusty Road into a beautiful paver and cement RCC Road with the Society expenses approximately 5 Lakhs Rupees which ideally should have been spent by the municipal corporation. They also added decorative LEDs which is helping the society members, neighbouring societies and the visitors for parking their vehicles and safely commute on the road. This also helped in resolving the parking space issue for members not having allotted parking. While constructing the cement paver platform they have added the drainage connecting across the road so the water during rainy season doesn’t log on the road and flow into the AMC drainage main line which was not planned by the municipal corporation.
The road light issue was finally fixed after following up for three years and all the road lights have been converted into LEDs.
Two big trees on outside Society main road, resulted in several accidents every day. They requested AMC for fixing the tree signage/radium but they didn’t come with the solution and finally the community fixed radium plates across the tree at their own cost which will avoid all the accidents in future.
They also organised a special camp for election card for the members and arranged a help Centre on Gujarat assembly election to encourage members to be a part of democracy!