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Uttar Pradesh: 75-hour drive starts in 750 civic bodies across 75 districts to beautify garbage sites
Uttar Pradesh urban development minister Arvind Kumar Sharma said that the department is aiming to convert garbage sites across the state into “selfie points” after cleaning and beautifying them
“Remember, you are in a no-garbage zone. Throwing garbage here is an offence.”
Such messages would come up across all garbage vulnerable points (GVPs) as part of the rather daunting task that the state’s urban development department has decided to embark upon.
The plan to beautify all garbage sites across the state over the next 75 hours was inaugurated on Thursday with the state’s urban development minister Arvind Kumar Sharma claiming that the department is aiming to convert garbage sites across the state into “selfie points” after cleaning and beautifying them.
These selfie points would be named “swachhta ki selfie (a selfie of cleanliness).” The campaign is named “75 ghantey, 75 jiley, 750 nikay (75 hours, 75 districts, 750 local bodies)”.
“We are aiming at a perceptible change in cleanliness after December 3,” the minister said, while holding a virtual interaction with all municipal commissioners to mark the launch.
“We are trying to usher in a major change that should be visible from Sunday onwards,” the minister said to the commissioners.
“Nothing is impossible,” he said and applauded the municipal commissioner in Saharanpur when he told him that a 50-year-old garbage site had been cleaned.
The minister also participated in a function in Kaiserbagh where a cleanliness campaign was undertaken.
“I can tell you from my own experience that when I lived in Dalibagh, I undertook a cleanliness campaign. The local residents applauded the initiative. Thus, I am confident that this 75-hour campaign too would yield results,” he added.
“The target is we should not be able to spot a single garbage vulnerable point (GVP) across the state after December 3. These garbage points would be cleaned and beautified and would be subsequently developed as selfie points or places where the elderly could mingle,” Sharma said.
“To ensure that after beautification, these spots don’t end up becoming garbage points again, we are also thinking of developing vertical gardens at these places,” Sharma added.
He said a different strategy would be put in place for religious places.
“In places like Ayodhya, Mathura, Vrindavan, Chitrakoot, Varanasi and Mirzapur, a different strategy would be adopted. In these religious places, we plan to collect all things that are offered to the gods as part of rituals,” he said.
