Miranda House students launch campaign to make DU poster-free

Seven students of Delhi University’s Miranda House have started a campaign to save paper and make the university poster free. The campaign called “No Poster Party” started during the student union elections two weeks ago.

Seven students of Delhi University’s Miranda House have started a campaign to save paper and make the university poster free. The campaign called “No Poster Party” started during the student union elections two weeks ago.

During DU elections, student organisations campaign by sticking posters on the university and college walls, and litter the street with papers. (Raj K Raj/Hindustan Times)

During DU elections, student organisations campaign by sticking posters on the university and college walls, and litter the street with papers.

“We were very disturbed when we saw different student organisations throwing posters and wasting paper during the student union election,” said Simran Kapoor, a second-year student and one of the founders.

She added that after seeing the litter, she along with Maria Hasan, Kanupriya Awathi, Nancy Sharma, Swastika Kharbanda, Jaya Chauhan and Aditi from BA Programme decided to start the drive.

In principle, the university does not allow sticking posters, but as no strict action is taken, students continue to violate the rule.

“First we created a group on Facebook and brought students together. We collaborated with the National Service Scheme (NSS) students and decided to clean the campus. It was our first programme to make a difference,” said Kapoor.

“The paper we had collected we wanted to give it the college recycling unit. As we did not have permission to do that, we sold it to the scrap dealers and dumped the rest,” said Kapoor.

Read: DU sends notices to students’ union poll candidates over littering

The group will now focus on cleaning campus garbage dumps around the campus which are always overflowing. They will replace the posters with paintings and graphics consisting messages of saving the environment.

They are also planning an awareness drive against spitting in public spaces. The drive ‘Thook Kar Dikha Abhiyan (Dare you spit drive)’ will focus on cycle rickshaw and auto drivers who ferry students.

“This is just a small step to make students aware of the need to protect our environment. We are lucky that our campus is green we just need to keep in clean,” said Kapoor.

Their focus, as of now, is on north campus, but with support they will go to south campus.

The inspiration for this campaign is a similar group called “Making a difference, by being the difference” working in Dehradun, Uttarakhand. Kapoor was a part of the group when she was in school and has participated in various plantation and cleanliness drives.