Facelift at King’s Circle

Gaurang Damani and his organisation adopted the King’s Circle station in Mumbai and painstakingly gave it a facelift with the help of volunteers

Until last year, King’s Circle railway station in Mumbai wore a fatigued look — the walls marred with paan stains, garbage strewn across the platform and dull streetlights flickering at night.

In September 2014, Gaurang Damani decided he had had enough. He kept writing to the local railway authorities but it didn’t prove to be fruitful. So he resolved to take matters into his own hands. Gaurang adopted the King’s Circle station in December last year and actively started revamping it this year after the Central Railway authorities were convinced that he was the best man for the job. He says, “I continued writing to local railway authorities but it never helped. I finally met the senior divisional operations manager and he asked me to adopt the station. I immediately asked for permissions, and three months later, we began working on it.Today, the walls are freshly painted, the station is well lit till dawn and the platforms are cleaner.”

Gaurang, who runs the NGO Karmayogi Pratisthan, got 40 residents together to clean the station. By January this year, Gaurang collaborated with local schools to paint the outer walls of the King’s Circle railway station. Art students from local colleges lent their creativity on the platform walls. Local schools came together to run “do not spit/litter” campaigns and fliers were sent out to share the need for cleanliness.

He reveals that it wasn’t difficult to get people together. “Till date, I have never had to beg people to join the campaign. Everybody was forthcoming about keeping the railway station clean. People realise that they play a huge role in keeping the city clean — it isn’t just the local authorities who are responsible.”

Once the dustbins were strategically placed across the stations, pamphlets were sent out requesting people to keep the premises clean. And Gaurang admits that the station premise have never been cleaner. He says, “A lot more people started keeping the station clean. Once the platform was renovated, people consciously didn’t dirty the surroundings. For instance, people didn’t spit on painted walls that had some art on it.”

However, it wasn’t all that easy. Gaurang admits that the flowerpots were stolen at times, and the information posters were torn. But he remained undeterred. He says, “I was prepared for this. It is always a challenge to do something new. It is obviously frustrating to see a few individuals disrupting the collective effort. But unless you consciously educate people about the importance of keeping the surroundings clean, change won’t happen.”

Gaurang believes that education on cleanliness is key, especially since it isn’t part of the public consciousness. He says, “You won’t see people spitting in a mall or a movie theatre. There is a sense of decorum attached to these places but you see it happening routinely at public spaces. The general perception among citizens is to treat a public space shabbily if it is already unclean. There is no sense of responsibility towards public property. Once we imbibe these qualities, only then will we become more responsible.”