Swachh Survekshan 2019: 500 Schools In Mysuru To Adopt One Area Each To Win The ‘Cleanest City Of India’ Title

New Delhi: To bring back the crown of being India’s cleanest city during Swachh Survekshan 2019 that it had bagged in the year 2015 and 2016 – Mysuru City Corporation has come up with a unique idea. The corporation has formed Swachh Committees known as ‘Parisara Clubs’ in about 500 schools of the city, wherein students and school authorities have been asked to adopt their localities and help them go 100 per cent clean, waste-free and open defecation free.

Talking to NDTV about this initiative, MCG Health Commissioner, DG Nagaraja, who is spearheading the campaign, said,

This initiative will help us target more areas at the same time thereby making Mysuru one of India’s cleanest cities all over again. The swachh committees that we are forming in schools will help us target waste management, plastic waste management, toilet construction and keeping areas litter-free. Each school will adopt their locality and give it a swachh look by managing things that are not done in the area as per swachh bharat mission agendas.

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Mysuru city school students demonstrating the ill effects of using plastic and motivating people to give up the use of plastics in their life

Giving examples of the activities, Mr Nagaraja highlighted,

One of the schools in Mysuru has pledged to make their ward 100 per cent plastic free. For this, the first step the students took was to educate each of the society members on why they need to refuse plastic, as a second step, students did a door-to-door campaign informing people eco-friendly alternatives available in the market and now they have started confiscating plastics from everyone’s house. Another school has pledged to do monthly clean-up drives at different locations of the society, whereas one school is teaching their society how to segregate and manage waste at home effectively.

Along with this, the students of these schools are also celebrating their Birthdays in a Swachh way. So, instead of giving chocolates or toffees to their classmates, the students are distributing saplings, edible cutlery, upcycled gift items or other eco-friendly alternatives, thereby teaching them something or the other about effective waste management and Clean India initiative.

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Mr Nagaraja also explained that along with students, teachers will also have to work for this initiative, he added,

Every week, teachers will have to submit a special report on what has been done in that particular week and the outcome to the municipal corporation highlighting what is missing in the particular area so that the civic body can take required actions and fulfill the gap.

This is the first step that has been taken by the civic body this year during Swachh Survekshan, which is assessing the cleanliness quotient of 4,237 towns and cities and 62 Cantonment Boards and covering around 40 crore people.