Robotics engineer now Delhi’s swachh poster boy | Delhi News

For eight months, Tarun Bhalla had been wading through a ‘sewage lake’ to reach his office. Stinking sewage water was leaking onto West Delhi’s Satguru Ram Singh road, where his robotics firm is housed. His employees visited local elected officials, but nothing changed. Bhalla, 39, who had taken to wearing gumboots to work – both out of helplessness and as a “visual protest”- decided to take matters into his own problem-solving hands.

“We call ourselves an emerging superpower, a trillion-dollar economy, but we let our people live in this inhuman way. The flowing water we would see every single day was literal shit. One day, I saw an AAP poster talking about how CM Kejriwal has gifted our neighbourhood a new toilet, and I just snapped.

Tarun Bhalla

If they are going to put up posters, so will I,” says the robotics engineer and entrepreneur. So, Bhalla got large three posters made – one each for AAP, BJP and Congress – which read “Tum mujhe vote do, main tumhe dengue, malaria aur keechad doonga (You give us votes, we will give you dengue, malaria and sewage).”

Chaiwala’s plight triggered ‘shame’ event that forced authorities to act

Next, he put together an event inaugurating the open-air sewage lake, and sent invitation cards to their local representatives – MP Meenakshi Lekhi and MLA Shiv Charan Goel (both of whose faces also adorned the posters). The event was attended by about a hundred local business owners, and several curious passersby. “I made sure my 11-year-old daughter also came for the inauguration, so she sees you have to fight for things in life,” he says. A ribbon-cutting ceremony happened, laddoos were passed around, and there were chants about “our progress as a country”. A few hours later, it finally happened – action was taken.

“The event was at 11am on Saturday, March 3, and in about half an hour, a PWD truck showed up. We thought they had stopped for a cup of tea. Another truck came, people started working and it started getting cleaned,” says Bhalla. By Monday, the water was gone, the sewer got fixed, and the three taunting posters were taken away by MCD workers. “Clearly they always had the means to fix it, but didn’t bother until they were shamed. I’m sure it being election season also helped.”

Why this unique method of protest? “I’m not interested in being violent, I don’t want to grease the palms of some MCD officer to make this happen. As a common man, my strength is in numbers, and having a sense of humour,” he adds.

The overflowing sewage had been hampering local businesses for months. A car showroom on the road had to shut down. “They got into a few tussles with customers and clients because when the cars would come out of servicing, they would drive into the street and need servicing yet again,” says Bhalla, who found the ‘lake’ to be a turn-off for prospective employees – they would go back without giving the interview.

It was actually the travails of the local chaiwala that finally prompted Bhalla into action. Shatrughan Rai says his earnings came down from Rs 2,000 per day to Rs 500 a day. “It was a horrible eight months for me. My stall was fully surrounded by sewage. I tried to clean up around me as much as I could, but no one wanted to come and buy here. I didn’t want to sit in the filth all day either, but what choice did I have?” he says. He adds that he is very relieved to be able to get back to business as usual.