Ludhiana: For the involvement of residents in Swachhta Survekshan and mass-level public awareness, the civic body will be organising various types of competitions through social media in which winners will get certificates. These competitions will also help the MC to get marks in Swachhta Survekshan-2021, which is expected to take place in January next year. The officials are now stressing upon more public involvement in the survekshan because at the time of field visit by teams public awareness will also be checked.
Through these competitions the residents can take part in drawing, songs, jingles, street plays, short videos and murals. The civic body officials have offered topics like clean environment, ban on plastic, home composting, reduction in air pollution, impact of Swachh Bharat Mission, open defecation-free city, two separate bins, invention from scrap, garbage free city and onw with four Rs (reduce, refuse, reuse and recycle).
One of the civic body officials claimed that registration for taking part in this competition was started on December 4 and by December 9 people could participate in the same while on December 10 they would declare the results. He said it carried 40 to 50 marks in Swachhta Survekshan and it would help them in getting good ranking in the survekshan this time. He said many competitions were already going on at other platforms.
A resident of Dugri, Phase 3, Apinder Sodhi, however, advised the civic body to first perform its duty towards the city and then organise such events. She said, “Swachh Ludhiana is an oxymoron. Every few yards is a garbage heap. First, install a system of garbage collection and disposal and only then have senseless competitions, which are not going to make the city clean in any way.” She said the MC’s own system was not in order and they were thinking that through such competitions the city would look clean.
Another resident from the Civil Lines Kamal Verma said they had started doing segregation of waste at home and were giving the garbage to waste collectors in segregated form but collectors used to mix the segregated waste while throwing it into a rehri. Now, even they have stopped doing the same. So, before asking people to do any such thing, the civic body should educate its own staff about the same.