Mangaluru: Dr Rajendra Prasad and NRI Ullas Hiremath flagged off the seventh week’s drive of Ramakrishna Mission Swachhata Abhiyan in front of Cascia High School at Marnamikatta on Sunday.
Swami Ekagamyananda, convener of Swachhata Abhiyan, Harish Achar, Syndicate member, Mangalore University and others were present. A little more than 100 volunteers were divided into 4 groups and work was divided.
Shivakumar led the group of volunteers in cleaning the area in front of Cascia High School and Mangaladevi Car Street. They removed plastic, paper and other dirt on the road. Rathna Alva led volunteers in door-to-door campaign creating awareness about garbage segregation and cleanliness by distributing awareness handbills. The area in front of Cascia high school meant to be used as footpath was neglected and had become a garbage disposal spot.
Children and pedestrians were not able to use the area and were facing lot of hygiene problem. Conveners of the abhiyan Dilraj Alva, Umanath Kotekar and Dinesh Karkera visited nearby houses in the last two weeks and urged them not to throw garbage in that area and help in keeping the area clean. Work had also begun to lay interlock tiles for the footpath in that region much to the relief of pedestrians and children.
The electric transformer in the middle of the footpath was a hurdle to many pedestrians resulting in small accidents. Hence a new railing has been erected around the transformer. Thanks to their hard work, the area where garbage was once discarded now has a small garden with flower pots beautifying the locality. Nearly 40 youths divided into three teams removed thousands of illegal posters, banners, buntings and other publicity materials that were ruining the city’s beauty.
Volunteers also cleaned up Yekkur, and similar drives were organized in several villages such as Kotekar, Konaje, Ullal, Permannur, Someshwara, Munnur, Manjanadi under the guidance of Ramakrishna Mission which supported the initiative through supply of cleaning equipment, handbills, t-shirts and lunch for volunteers. The initiative was supported by DK Zilla Panchayat.