TURA: Heeding the appeal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and in collaboration with the Tura Municipal Board, the NSS Unit of Don Bosco College, Tura launched a fortnight’s cleanliness drive (Swatchta Pakhwada) on Wednesday.
The cleanliness drive was inaugurated by West Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner Ram Singh and Sabrella B Marak, the CEO of Tura Municipal Board.
Addressing the students and invited guests at the inaugural event, Deputy Commissioner Ram Singh praised the cleanliness model in the Garo villages.
“By and large, villages in West Garo Hills are clean, but it is the picnic spots and ecologically fragile streams and water bodies that have become the dumping ground for liquor bottles,” said Ram Singh.
He also reminded all that recently his administration had passed orders to garbage collectors to buy empty bottles, but it was becoming practically impossible to manage the huge quantities collected over a long period of time. To overcome this ‘bottleneck’ he suggested encouraging manufacturers and distributors to take up recycling of the bottles on a war footing.
Giving a word of advice to the students, the deputy commissioner urged them to not only take pictures of polluted areas and send them to him, but also to roll up their sleeves and be accountable and responsible about the way they dispose their garbage.
The Chief executive Officer (CEO) of Tura Municipal Board, Ms. Sabrella B Marak said there was no greater joy than to return to her Alma Mater, this time to enthuse students to be partners in maintaining a clean environment. She lamented that despite all the efforts made to engage in garbage collection, the dumping pits were in a deplorable condition.
“We have succeeded in providing dust-bins in every locality, and the task of segregating waste aided by litter bins is gradually picking up. We also need to take the help of NSS volunteers to identify persons or localities where open defecation was practiced. This would be a great service to the administration,” said Ms Marak.
Principal of Don Bosco College, Rev.Fr. Bivan Rodriques Mukhim, while welcoming the guests said it was a pleasure to collaborate with the district administration in such proactive programmes that enable students to become agents of change for the better.
He said it was his earnest endeavour to devote his energies to keep the college campus and the surroundings clean and green. He further said, he was confident that the NSS volunteers guided by their Coordinators, Salkam Momin and Suraj Pradhan would make this dream come true so as to declare Don Bosco College a ‘clean and green campus’. He also had a word of appreciation for the TMB for providing attractive dust-bins for the college campus.
Coordinator of NSS, Suraj Pradhan, outlined the day-to-day activities that were planned for the entire fortnight which included a visit to Galwang-Chidekre, Babadam – the adopted village of the college.
Later, the deputy commissioner handed away certificates to the NSS volunteers who had recently attended the NSS programme.
Photo caption: Deputy Commissioner Ram Singh addreses the students and NSS volunteers at Don Bosco College during the launch of the Swatcha Pakhwada cleanliness driver