Over 10 lakh children engage in first 72 hours of cleanliness drive

New Delhi: More than 10 lakh children have been engaged in first 72 hours of cleanliness drive initiated by the Ministry of Urban Affairs through urban local bodies in the Country.

October is the month of festivals and with behaviour change at the centre of the cleanliness campaign, Ministry of Urban Affairs launched thematic activities to propel segregation of waste at source campaign. The core activities involve dissemination of key messages to the citizens through public outreach, door-to-door messaging and engagement with schools.

Officials said that Urban Local Bodies have been encouraged to organise public outreach activities to garner the attention of the residents to promote the practice of segregation.

The core activities include – door-to-door messaging with support from NGOs, SHGs, schools, colleges, youth organisations, RWAs, other civil societies, volunteers, etc demonstrating proper segregation covering all wards. ULBs can arrange separate storage systems to be fitted in the collection vehicles – wet (green), dry (blue) and any means of the collection – partitions, large bags, cane baskets, plastic/metal bins, or others. These core activities will ensure collected segregated waste remains segregated until processing facilities, said an official.

The special activities engaging school children have begun and will go on till October 30. Selfie points are being created using installations representing pair of bins -green (for wet waste) and blue (for dry waste). ULBs are engaging with the school children through tongue-twister challenges. Participants can be challenged to repeat quickly ‘Hara Geela Sookha Neela’ as many times as possible.

An official said that in a massive drive, in the first 72 hours more than 10 lakh children have already been engaged. While participating schools can register on the website sbmurban.gov.in, each school can be awarded a certificate of participation after the activities.

To encourage student participation in promoting segregation of waste both at school and at home, some of the activities planned are ‘Bins Out of Waste’ – Students can be encouraged to collect a bin from home and create art out of it at school using different painting media.

–IANS