Sarkari apathy: Broken Netaji bust dumped in garbage!

Ranchi, Jan 23: Today is the 117th birth anniversary of India's forgotten hero Netaji Subhash Chandra Basu. But do we really give him his due even today?

According to a report published in Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika, a bust of Netaji was set up on the GT Road at Gobindapur Chak in Dhanbad in 1990. Every year, local people pay tribute to the national hero on his birthday. But last year, the statue was damaged after being hit by a truck and it remained on the roads. No one from the administration or political circles took the initiative to relocate the statue and finally, the local police took the broken pieces and dumped them into the crowd of seized vehicles and other garbage inside the police station premises.

The local Jharkhand Bangla Bhasha Unnayan Samiti members took up the issue after none showed any interest. The organisation alleged that the broken bust remained in the garbage for four months but nobody was bothered.

It said repeated appeals had been made to the police and administration to set up a new statue or at least place the broken bust in a better place but no action was taken. Finally, the organisation along with common people staged a dharna in front of the office of the block development officer (BDO) of Gobindapur.

The BDO, Sanjiv Kumar, said they offered cement to repair the statue but no response was found. Although local police sources admitted that the statue had indeed lied in the garbage, they later brought it out.

The samiti and local people took the initiative to reinstall a new statue of Netaji following dilly-dallying on behalf of the administration. They have brought a new statue from Kolkata and it was supposed to be unveiled on Wednesday.

OneIndia News