Dist administration holds massive cleanliness drive in city

Mangalore, March 27: Hundreds of people belonging to various organizations on Sunday took to the streets for a cleanliness drive across Mangalore with a noble cause to make the city clean, green and progressive.

Citizens of Mangalore enthusiastically participated in the mass scale “shramdan” organised by the Dakshina Kannada district administration in association with various organisations and institutions.

Deputy Commissioner Subodh Yadav inaugurated the event at Nehru Maidan and called upon the citizens of Mangalore to be more aware about cleanliness.

“We should understand the importance of keeping our surroundings and city clean. Cleaning is our responsibility and we should not wait to others to clean the surroundings of our house,” he said.

DC also said that this mass cleanliness drive programmes should continue in the city and all organisations, institutions and groups should come forward to participate in the noble cause.

He said the main objective of the drive was creating awareness among people to keep their localities clean. “It is not a one day exercise. The district administration and the Mangalore City Corporation will continue the drive in the second phase,” he added.

Later, DC along with Additional Deputy Commissioner Prabhakar Sharma, Mangalore City Police Commissioner Seemanth Kumar Singh, Superintendent of Police of DK district A Subrahmanyeshwara Rao, MCC Commissioner K N Vijayaprakash, Zilla Panchayat CEO Shivashankar Murthy and others took the brooms and began cleaning the vicinity.

They were shocked to witness huge stocks of garbage in some spots of the area including near Lady Goshen Hospital and Central Market. They also found a large number of empty alcohol bottles near some bars and restaurants. DC asked the concerned people to remove them immediately and also warned to face huge amount of fine and also legal action if they continue to dump such wastes there.

Meanwhile students of AB Shetty Dental College staged a street play at Nehru Maidan and Service bus stand to create awareness against smoking and cutting trees.

Recently a meeting convened by the DC, had identified nine locations in the city for this cleanliness drive. Representatives of different organisations are voluntarily participating in the drive in those locations.

As decided in the meeting the cleaning drive went on at Balmatta Mission Compound (in association with NSS), Attavar Government Primary School to Vaidyanath Temple (NSS), Kadri Tollgate to Nanthoor to Kadri Park, Kankanady, Fr Mullers to Nandigudde (Humanitarian Relief Society, Mangalore), Subhashnagara, backside of Srinivas College (Campus Front of India), Urwastore Government Employees Quarters and Hathill (Government Employees Association, Scouts, Guides and MCC employees), Honnakatte to Kana M R PL Road (Police Youth Club), DC's Office, SP's office and Nehru Maidan (Campus Front of India and Home Guards) and Baikampady Industrial Area (Rotary Club, Vidyarthi Sangha, Industrial Associations). The entire programme is sponsored by Dix Engineering Projects Services Ltd.

Apart from the above places, the surroundings of four important temples of the district - Mangaladevi temple, Kadri Manjunatheshwara Temple, Kukke Subramanya Temple and Kateel Durgaparameshwari Temple were cleaned by the local people with the supervision of Temple management.