Resolving civic issues a second nature to them

Hyderabad: Fed up with the lax attitude of the civic officials, citizens have now started taking it upon themselves to fix problems. Karthik Pallam, a software engineer with Deloitte, first covered a pothole near Cyber Towers in Hi-Tec City in June 2017 and has since been there has been no looking back for this civic-conscious citizen. He, along with likeminded friends, got together and started fixing potholes and formed ‘We Can Make A Change.’ Karthik said, “Once I found the supplier to buy cold emulsion to fix the potholes, I knew there was no going back, regardless of whether I get help or not. After buying the material, a pothole at Cyber Towers was fixed.”

“This started in June 2017. I was in Bengaluru in 2017 working in an MNC. I was once travelling through road and saw a pothole there. When I just noticed, I did not think about fixing it, but when the situation did not change even after a month, I kept thinking about it. Later, instead of waiting, I decided to fill the pothole myself. I shared this idea with my colleagues and friends but I did not get any positive response from them.Later, I got a chance to move to Hyderabad. After shifting to Hyderabad, I noticed that the situation was same and there were more number of potholes seen in the city. We slowly started fixing the potholes and first pothole was fixed in June 2017 at Cyber Towers,” he recounted his experience.

Before filling the pothole,he checked how many number of people die because of potholes.There were over 10,000 people who met with accidents and more than 1,000 people died because of these potholes. Soon, two friends came forward to work with him in filling the pothole. Next day in the morning,they saw people were going easily through that stretch and that there was no risk to the commuters. “Next we filled the second pothole at Begumpet. People started believing in us and helped with fixing other potholes in the city. When we started this journey there were only three people with us but now there are 60 people in our group. We have filled 200 plus potholes in Hyderabad until now, for which I was awarded at iVolunteer,” he adds.

Apart from filling potholes, Karthik also took up beautification of public places, and cleaned the public places like bus stops on weekends. The officials appreciated their work and asked them to adopt a school or hospital for cleanliness. The group renovated the school in 55 days and made the Anganwadi School look like a play school. They provided electricity, water supplies, indoor, outdoor games and gardening. Together we collected around Rs 1.5 Lakh for the purpose, andcompleted the renovation of the school. People interested in joining the group may contact Ph. 9535805544 for further details.