Curtains on Swacch Mangaluru Abhiyan Phase 4 tomorrow

The concluding ceremony of Phase 4 of ‘Swacch Mangaluru Abhiyan’ will be held at Ramakrishna Mutt Auditorium in Mangaluru at 4 pm on July 28, said Swami Jitakamananda, Ramakrishna Mutt Mangaluru president.

Addressing mediapersons on Ramakrishna Mutt premises on Thursday, he said that Swami Divyananda, secretary of Ramakrishna Mission Saradapith, Belur Mutt, will preside over the programme. Nitte Education Trust Chairman N Vinay Hegde, MRPL Director (Finance) A K Sahoo and Mangaluru South MLA D Vedavyas Kamath will be guests of honour.

Swacchata Abhiyan volunteers Chandrakant Kulkarni and Bhavya Rani will be felicitated. Students who have performed well in the Swacchata Darshana exams will be awarded on the occasion. The stage programme will be followed by a special magic show on cleanliness by Kudroli Ganesh troupe at 7 pm.

Swacch Bharat Campaign coordinator Dilraj Alva said that about 200 volunteers have taken part in the fourth phase of the cleanliness drive, starting last November.

“The participants included professionals, social activists, entrepreneurs and students. ‘Shramadaan’ was conducted on every Sunday between 7 am and 10 am in various parts of the city. The ‘Shramadaan’ included cleaning the roads, dividers and drains, renovation and restoration of parks, restoration of direction boards, and name plates, restoration and erection of new bus shelters, removal of unauthorized banners, buntings and posters, beautification of compound walls and painting of art works,” he added.

Daily awareness campaign coordinator Umanath Kotekar said that the volunteers have visited about 100 houses everyday, spreading awareness on cleanliness, segregation of waste and overall waste management. About 170 programmes have been conducted and 20,000 houses have been visited under this initiative by nearly 40 groups of volunteers. Boibins and bags have been distributed for preparation of compost and storage of dry waste respectively.

Swacch Manas campaign coordinator Ranjan B said that the programmes have been conducted in nearly 108 schools in Mangaluru, Bantwal and Puttur taluks.

“About 10,757 students from these schools were selected as Swacchata Senanis. About 500 programmes have been conducted in these schools under the concept, Swacchata Chintana, Swacchata Spardha, Swacchata Diwas, Swacchata Manthana and Swacchata Darshana. Training sessions were conducted once a month. Five students from each school were selected as Swacch Ambassadors and were given training in a workshop in Ramakrishna Mutt,” he said.

“Pots are being provided to interested people at a subsidized price of Rs 500 as against Rs 2000, by Ramakrishna Mutt, towards encouraging composting and segregation of waste,” Ranjan added.

Swami Ekagamyananda, Ramakrishna Mission Swacchata Abhiyana convener, said that in order to expand the scope and domain of the Swacchata Abhiyan, the Ramakrishna Mission took up Swaccha Grama drive in 100 villages in Mangaluru and Bantwal taluks, in association with local gram panchayats.

About 6,000 volunteers have actively participated in the drives.

Clean drinking water units have been installed in 30 villages. Efforts are also being made to repair and restore dilapidated toilets and construction of toilets.