Sweeping start for a clean city

Bengaluru: Twelve-year-old Anya, wearing gloves, was immersed in plucking weeds and cleaning the road Thursday morning. “Its nice to see my locality clean and so I decided to join my family in cleaning it, ” she said, obviously enjoying the experience .

The little girl was one of thousands of Sobha Mayflower residents and  members of various NGOs in Belandur ,who had come together to transform Green Glen Layout into a clean and neat neighbourhood. Likewise, for many Bengalureans this Gandhi Jayanthi marked a new beginning :  a first step towards a cleaner city.

Armed with brooms and gloves, volunteers of various residents’ welfare associations and NGOs got down to the job of cleaning drains and sweeping roads as Bengalureans took to the streets in response to  Prime minister Narendra Modi’s call for a cleaner country with his ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan’ campaign obviously striking a chord among all sections of society .

In Belandur alone, nearly 2,000 volunteers gathered to clean the Green Glen Layout with the help of the BBMP. Said Mr Pankaj Gulati, an organizing member of the cleanliness drive, “We identified five main areas to tackle: removing of advertisements and ad poles, cleaning drains, clearing construction debris, fixing black spots and planting of saplings.

The drive will be an ongoing process and  not be held just for a day. We will act as guards and ensure that nobody litters our locality. The drive will be extended to our surrounding streets in the next few days.”

Similar drives were held by local elected leaders with the help of residents in Mahadevapura, Yediyur, Maruti Mandir and Rammaiah Layout. The BBMP’s ‘Swachh Bengaluru Swachh Bharata’ campaign was kicked off by mayor N. Shantha Kumari, who was joined by Maruti Mandir ward corporator, V. Vagish in cleaning the streets.

In a first, many MLAs and MPs too grabbed broomsticks and did their bit for a clean city. While Mr P C Mohan and Mr Rajeev Chandrasekhar participated in a cleanliness drive by the Indian Railways at the Cantonment railway station, district-in-charge minister, Ramalinga Reddy took part in a drive starting from MG Road  Thursday morning.

Meanwhile Railway station gets a scrub

Hundreds of volunteers arrived at Cantonment Railway Station  Wednesday morning to join the nationwide Swachh Bharat Mission, marking the start of not just of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationwide campaign, but also a local movement called the Namma Swachh Bengaluru conceptualised by the Namma Bengaluru Foundation (NBF). 

Member of Parliament, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who had launched the local movement earlier in the week appealing to citizens on social networking sites to make the PM’s campaign a success, joined volunteers in cleaning and mopping platforms, the overbridge and even the railway tracks. MP PC Mohan also pitched in.

The Namma Swachh Bengaluru campaign will have volunteers identifying black spots, which the local authorities will then be asked to clean. “We willpitch in with manpower to help the administration,” said Mr Sridhar Pabbisetty, CEO, NBF. The first drive will be launched in Koramangala where the NBF team has already identified 300 person days of work across three roads.