‘Ghantagadi’ started from ‘this’ city in Maharashtra! Here is the interesting thing about the hourglass!

In the cities and towns of India, as soon as you wake up in the morning, you hear the sound of a particular bell, that of the garbage collector ‘Gantagadi’. Today this clockwork has become an integral part of our daily life. This hourglass can be considered as another great example of the automotive industry. This is considered to be a very revolutionary and significant change in the field of automobile public cleanliness.

The invention and beginning of the hourglass

The concept of Ghantagadi originated and was first successfully implemented by Nashik Municipal Corporation in Maharashtra. Nashik is considered to be the ‘father’ of clockwork. In the 1990s, the problem of garbage in Nashik city became serious. Garbage bins overflowed everywhere, causing stench and disease. To overcome this problem, the then administration and sanitation department officials came up with a unique scheme of ‘door to door garbage collection’. Initially this experiment started with small handcarts and then vehicles. Nashik’s ‘garbage-free city pattern’ was so successful that later the whole country adopted this pattern under ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’.

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‘hourglass‘ Interesting story behind the name

There is a very practical and interesting reason why this car got the name ‘Ghantagadi’. In the early days there were no modern loudspeakers or digital systems for playing songs like today. Also, it was not possible to knock on the door of every house and collect the garbage after the garbage collection workers arrived. People were busy at home and when the car came and went, the garbage was thrown on the road again.

To remedy this, a large iron or copper ‘bell’, like a school bell, was attached to the garbage collection cart or staff hand cart. When the train entered the lane, the staff would ring the bell loudly. Hearing the sound of the bell, citizens knew that the garbage truck had arrived. Then people would come out with the garbage from the house. With this sound of the bell, people started to stand waiting for the train and the garbage bins on the road gradually disappeared. Due to this indiscriminate use of clocks, the public named this train affectionately as ‘Ghantagadi’.

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Today, the technology has changed and the bell has been replaced by patriotic, cleanliness songs, but the name of this car ‘Ghantagadi’ still remains in people’s minds. The jingle of the bell, which started in Nashik, conveying the message of cleanliness, is still ringing in the whole of India through the ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’.