Mumbai: Senior citizens give facelift to Andheri locality

A clean pavement at Sher-E-Punjab Colony. The roads are now lined with young trees. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

A community project driven by senior citizens has given Andheri's Sher-E-Punjab Colony a facelift with well-lit and hawker-free pavements and roads lined with young trees.

The six-month-long initiative began with the purpose of making the area senior citizen friendly. While footpaths were cleared of debris, abandoned or wrongfully parked vehicles and even roadside vendors, saplings were planted and more street-lights were installed.

Care Federation, a local citizen movement, coordinated the efforts. "It required constant follow-up with authorities and meetings among all to ensure that this work is done. Amid the pandemic, clearly the priorities were different and due to resource constraints, the movement took six months to complete. But it has not fully concluded as we are yet waiting for other works to be done starting from putting railings for the cleared footpaths and other works," said Sanjay Bhat, from Care Federation.

Another member, Dr Mini Panicker, said, "The idea is to make the area senior citizen-friendly. They form the biggest part of our local residents here. Care Federation has been actively working for the locality for over a decade now. Amid the pandemic, a new venture was taken up by senior citizens of the locality which was supported by the citizens' group."

Talking on behalf of the motivated senior citizens from the locality, 69-year-old Shailesh Mahabal shared, "My wife and children were initially arguing over me venturing out of home for this work. But then somebody had to take the initiative. The young generation I see is really caught up with the work-from-home situation and all the uncertainty over jobs. Like me, other senior citizens have time and energy at hand so we are more than willing to participate considering the outcome of the project is going to look so good."

The team got in touch with civic officials, police to rid the sidewalks of trash and illegally parked vehicles. Once the obstacles were gone, the elderly members launched a tree plantation drive with local corporator Sadanand Parab. While the before and after pictures of the area show great changes, the work is to continue by local citizens.

Talking about the initiative, Parab said, "The footpath work for Vijay Raut road is going on for a few months now. The residents' association has been active in the project. Due to lockdown, the number of hawkers and abandoned vehicles increased. Some rickshaws too were wrongly parked which generally wouldn't have been here. But in lockdown, many have parked here and gone to their homes faraway."

Parab said the railings will be in place by October/November as they won't be able to do much during the monsoon.

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No. of months the elderly citizens took to clean the area