Delhi L-G launches special drive to clean the city ahead of monsoon

Ahead of monsoon season, lieutenant-governor Vinai Kumar Saxena launched a special cleanliness and asked all civic agencies to seriously engage in the exercise so as to make the national capital clean

Ahead of monsoon season, lieutenant-governor Vinai Kumar Saxena launched a special cleanliness and asked all civic agencies to seriously engage in the exercise so as to make the national capital clean. Sanitation is one of the biggest civic challenges before the capital and most areas outside of Lutyens’ Delhi continue to remain filthy.

Delhi LG Vinai Saxena. (Photo by Raj K Raj/Hindustan Times)

The drive will also see the participation of the public, to whom the L-G appealed to do their bit to keep their neighbourhoods clean. Later, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal also urged all MLAs and MPs to participate in the drive, prompting several AAP MLAs to pick up brooms and join residents in cleaning streets and other public places.

In a public function at Mukherjee Nagar in north Delhi, the L-G kicked off the drive in the presence of north-east Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari, chief secretary Naresh Kumar and municipal officials. Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia, who were also to attend the programme, could not do so owing to some reasons. Saxena and Tiwari later picked up brooms and swept the street near Mukherjee Nagar, and also helped assimilate garbage littering the area, while urging people to participate in drives in their areas.

Leader of opposition in Delhi assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, AAP MLAs Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj, among other legislators, also joined the special cleanliness drives in their assembly constituencies. The drive will continue till June 26.

“I carried out an inspection of sanitation conditions in Jaitpur ward with civic agency officials. The inspection will be carried out in Badarpur market on Wednesday. The sanitation workers complained about lack of vehicles for transporting garbage, and a shortage of manpower. Some assembly constituencies have more sanitation workers while others lack adequate sanitation workers. I will take this issue up with the MCD commissioner and the L-G,” said Bidhuri.

Delhi minister Imran Hussain took to the streets of Ballimaran as part of the drive and directed officials to intensify cleaning of streets and pavements ahead of the rainy season, so that pedestrians do not face difficulties while walking around the neighbourhood. Kalkaji MLA Atishi carried out a sanitation drive in Kalkaji Market along with area residents.

“The special sanitation drive will be carried out for a fortnight in mission mode, where all civic agencies concerned will work in tandem for the first time. This is a one of its kind cleanliness drive aimed at providing a decisive push to remove garbage, construction and demolition waste, inert and plastic that has accumulated on city roads, central verges, footpaths, lanes, by-lanes, parks and neighbourhoods over a period of time,” the L-G’s office said in a statement.