The commitment to social service does not die down with retirement, nor can old age corrode it. The story of octogenarian former IPS officer Inderjit Singh Sidhu stands out as a reminder of it. This 88-year-old ex-bureaucrat has been cleaning streets around his neighbourhood in Chandigarh for over a decade. But his sense of service to social causes has brought fruition, as he has been awarded the prestigious Padma Shri award.
As a police officer, he fought for restoring law and order all through his career; he is now fighting litter with the same dedication. His motto is simple: he wants to keep his surroundings clean and green.
Sidhu shot into media glare after videos showing him picking up garbage from roads and public spaces near his home in Chandigarh’s Sector 49 went viral last year. The videos evoked widespread appreciation on social media, eventually leading to this official recognition.
Hailing from Bugra village in Dhuri, Sangrur district of Punjab, Sidhu, who retired from the post of DIG in Punjab Police, lives in an IAS/IPS society in Sector 49 and spends most of his day cleaning his society and nearby areas. The beauty of his dedication lies in the fact that despite people stopping to record videos of him, Sidhu continues to clean garbage without getting distracted.
His quit efforts grabbed the public attention and were later acknowledged when an award was announced by the Governor on August 15 last year. His simplicity has been so overbearing that he did not attend the event as he became nervous due to the sudden attention generated by social media.
Sidhu joined the Punjab Police as an inspector in 1963 and was promoted to the IPS cadre in 1981. He served as City SP in Amritsar during the peak of terrorism in the state and later served as DIG before retiring in 1996.
Sidhu feels pained at the way people throw garbage on the roads and vows to continue cleaning till his health permits him.
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