Bittu Tabahi cleaned the Ajnar River for months. Why did the rubbish return?

Surendra Singh Choudhary, known online as Bittu Tabahi, spent months pulling plastic and other rubbish from the Ajnar River near Biaora in Madhya Pradesh’s Rajgarh district. His work brought public attention to a polluted river and showed how much one determined resident, helped at times by friends, could achieve. But by October 2026, reports showed rubbish accumulating again in areas he had cleaned. That setback is central to his story: removing waste can change a riverbank, but keeping it clean requires people to stop dumping and an organised system to collect and manage rubbish.

What Bittu did, and the risks he described

Reports based on interviews with Choudhary say he began cleaning the Ajnar River on 26 January 2026. A college student, he worked with basic equipment, initially receiving help from friends and using his own savings for supplies. He removed plastic bags, bottles and other accumulated waste, and his before-and-after videos showed visibly cleaner stretches. These images demonstrate the removal of surface rubbish; they do not, by themselves, establish that the river’s water quality or ecology was fully restored.

In a conversation shared by Food Pharmer, Choudhary describes infections affecting his hands and feet, unpleasant smells and repeated encounters with snakes while working in the river. These are his accounts of the physical toll, not independent medical findings or laboratory evidence that the water contained a particular toxin. The reel also captures his frustration with people dumping waste back into places he cleaned. He recounts being rebuffed when he asked someone not to throw polythene into the water.

The reel’s caption presents him as having no organisation, big team or even proper gloves, and says he bought equipment from lunch savings. His largely personal effort is supported by independent interviews, although the stronger suggestion that he always worked completely alone is misleading: he told NDTV that friends helped him, especially early on. The caption also says his parents did not support him. In his account they discouraged the risky work; NDTV reports they initially did not know about it. Those details should not be flattened into an established claim about his family’s motives.

What changed by October

Choudhary’s clean-up attracted wider recognition, including a meeting with Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav in September. Yet fresh reports in mid-October described plastic and other rubbish collecting again along the Ajnar River. Choudhary resumed cleaning. He also placed two dustbins near the river, and later reported that one had gone missing. The disappearance was reported by India Today and The Indian Express; the available reporting does not establish who took it.

These events make the difference between a clean-up drive and sustained river protection visible. A volunteer can remove existing waste, but cannot personally ensure daily collection from surrounding homes, shops and public places, prevent all illegal dumping, or manage every bin. The return of rubbish shows that disposal behaviour and maintenance remained a problem at the reported spots. It does not prove that all of Choudhary’s work was wasted or that the entire river reverted to its previous condition.

Who has to keep the river clean?

People who dispose of waste are responsible for not throwing it into a river. Local authorities also have responsibilities for waste collection and management. India’s Solid Waste Management Rules, 2026, which took effect on 1 April 2026, set out duties for waste generators and urban and rural local bodies covering segregation, collection, transportation, processing and disposal. The precise responsibilities of a particular local body, and whether it failed in any specific duty at Ajnar, would need local records, service information and inspection findings; the available reporting does not establish a legal violation by a named official.

Bins without reliable emptying, waste collection and suitable disposal can merely shift rubbish from one location to another. Equally, collection services cannot succeed if people keep dumping into a waterbody. Practical solutions for the reported stretch would involve accessible collection points, regular collection and safe handling of the removed waste, clear responsibility for maintenance, and proportionate action against repeated dumping. Safer protective equipment and trained support are also important: serious exposure should not be treated as a necessary price of civic service.

What his effort establishes

Bittu Tabahi’s work deserves recognition for taking visible action where rubbish had been allowed to build up. It would be wrong, however, to turn his injuries into an example others should imitate without protection. More fundamentally, his October setback shows the unfairness of leaving a recurring public waste problem to one young volunteer. Individual initiative can begin a clean-up and mobilise neighbours; it cannot substitute for sustained civic cooperation and functioning waste services. The achievement is real, and so is the evidence that keeping the Ajnar River clean requires work beyond one person.