By implementing a special way in which we keep the city clean and maintain public hygiene, Mysuru City Corporation set up large steel mirrors on compound walls in common areas along busy public places in a special way to help people not urinate & litter on the side of roads.
It quickly captured public imagination and received massive love on social media, and a good news for the country's people in finding solutions to a century-old public problem. This project was a milestone in Mysuru’s ambition of making an appearance in the upcoming Swachh Survekshan rankings, India’s annual cleanliness survey of cities and beyond.
Mirrors had been placed across the compound wall, faced towards the drainage area by the suburban bus stand, near the government guest house in Mysuru, where the pilot is being considered. And the site apparently had been chosen because many, despite cleanliness campaigns, such as those run by residents and public safety committees, were taking their public pee along the roadside, according to reports. The mirrors, civic bodies say, are psychological. The moment you pass a public place to urinate, you notice that a self-reflective mirror shows you directly.
At the same time, however easy anyone driving there can see you as having been deemed worthy of no validation, no notice. They believe it is a straightforward method of cleaning up public spaces of their filth. Enforcing the effort, LED lights are installed under the mirrors so that even in the dark of night (even at nightfall), the area is illuminated.
Hopefully, that will prevent people from urinating at that spot again after daytime, and also after dark. The action of the citizens, residents and commuters alike is also welcomed; they tell us (and this seems likely) that it is a smart and practical civic solution, one that they have no complaints over.
Multiple others praised the Mysuru City Corporation for attempting a creative behavioural solution rather than one purely punitive. The mirror installations have spread through as much social media as they have been filmed, with people lauding the city for its smart cleanliness.
Two netizens wrote, commenting on my article, that for any public concern about hygiene and public health, it is the same sort of thing that needs to be done in another city. Some citizens added that public awareness and civic responsibility are as essential as the agency of the government.
They said keeping the place clean requires cooperation from the general public, indeed, officials. “If the pilot works well, mirror installations can be carried out with similar problems in the rest of Mysuru city,” officials said. Mysuru has been well-known for its heritage, tourism, and the cleanliness of its urban areas. It also ranks high on the national cleanliness lists.
The newly approved move was the latest local push toward national recognition this year, and the city again received media coverage for some surprisingly smart alternatives to urban waste as sanitation.
