LUDHIANA: On the second day of the awareness campaign kicked off by the municipal corporation to make Buddha Nullah garbage free, volunteers visited the areas along the drain and made people aware of the harmful impact of throwing garbage in the water body. On Tuesday, they visited the areas along the banks of Buddha Nullah, starting from Haibowal to Kundanpuri. Around 100 students participated in the drive.
Apart from this, the MC commissioner, Pardeep Sabharwal, also conducted a meeting with nodal officers, who have been deputed on the bridges of the drain for keeping a check on solid waste being thrown into the drain and its timely removal from inside the drain.
The nodal officers have been told to visit the areas along the banks of the drain on foot daily and create awareness among the masses for not throwing garbage into the drain. For repeated offenders a Rs 5,000 challan will be issued. The roadside vendors near Buddha Nullah will be told to keep dustbins while selling anything. The officials have been given 15-day time for this practice so that the drain could be made garbage free within the set deadline.
The volunteers from colleges visited the areas, including Sandhu Nagar, Hargobind Nagar, Kaler Encalve, Malhi Palace Road, Chander Nagar, New Chander Nagar, Shakti Vihar and Haibowal. They knocked at the doors in these colonies and tried to convince the people about dry and wet waste and asked them to give the segregated waste to the garbage collectors in their areas instead of throwing it into the water body.
They also told the residents that now the municipal corporation had started issuing challans to such people and if caught red-handed, then there was a provision of imposing a Rs 5,000 penalty on such persons. And, if anybody tried to burn the garbage near the drain, then the penalty would be between Rs 5,000 and Rs 25,000.