Posters pasted by different political parties, government notices, and commercial posters and leaflets stuck on walls and buildings of Kurseong town may have helped people in getting information about several things and issues when they were pasted, they surely are an eyesore now.

Defaced posters that have long lost their relevance and that have no meaning now, still litter the town, making a mockery of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Swaccha Bharat Abhiyaan.’ “The local administration has also not done the needful to clear the area of the litter and make the town clean again.

There seems to be no guidelines or rules when it comes to sticking such bills on the walls,” Sunil Sharma, a local resident of Kurseong, said. “To make our locality clean and beautiful, we ourselves must be responsive and come forward against such practices,” he added.

A restaurant owner in the town, D Bhutia, said he finds new political and commercial posters almost every morning he looks at his restaurant building walls. “I used to clear the walls of the bills on a regular basis earlier, but keeping in mind the scarcity of water and other problems, cleaning is done only occasionally these days,” Mr Bhutia said. A shopkeeper, Ramesh Gupta, said people do not leave his shop’s doors and stick posters there.

“We are simple business people. If we act against such practices, we might only face problems, so we keep mum. Hence we have nothing to do or comment on the matter,” he said. He added that as far as he knows, there are guidelines for sticking bills on public walls. “I have heard there are guidelines for this even in Sikkim,” he added.

Kurseong Municipality Chairman Krishna Limboo said that to litter a place “itself is an act against society, and that people themselves need to be aware of the matter and come forward against such practices.

“As several guidelines have already been made on various issues, until and unless the people are not aware and follow the guidelines themselves, the exercise is futile. However, we will definitely discuss this and look into the matter,” he said.