MANGALURU: The employees of education department in Karkala have taken cleanliness drive one step ahead, by not restricting the campaign merely to Gandhi Jayanthi celebrations.
All employees from the four offices in Karkala taluk, including the block education office, cluster resource centre, block resource centre and a branch office in Hebri, are dedicating the first 30 minutes on Thursdays to clean the offices, including toilets and work stations.
Launched in the second week of October, this activity is part of ‘Swarna Karkala Swachh Karkala’ campaign initiated by MLA V Sunil Kumar.
Block education officer, G S Shashidhar said, “This is an attempt to give the boring looking government offices a fresh look as well as spread the message of cleanliness, especially during the pandemic. At a time when people are engaged in a lot of challenges on social media platforms, we thought why not inspire people to participate in a cleanliness challenge and post pictures of clean offices. When we mooted the idea, we were happy to see the staff interested to participate in the drive. We are attempting to give all our offices a corporate look,” he said.
The whole team spends 30 minutes cleaning the entire office premise including the washbasins, toilets, workstation and the compound. The task begins at 9.55 am and is completed by 10.25am. The BEO’s office has about 15 employees including three women. In case of a closed holiday on Thursday, the activity is preponed to Wednesday.
Meanwhile, all employees have agreed to follow a dress code on every Friday. While men wear a white shirt and a dark coloured trouser preferably black, women have bought similar-looking sarees. All staff flaunt ID cards. “This is an attempt to brand the education department and we soon hope to rope in high schools in the cleanliness drive. Already, the headmaster and staff of the Belman Government Junior College participated in the initiative last Thursday,” said Shashidhar.