Zealous Punekars now living NaMo’s ‘Swachh Bharat’ dream!

MEKHOLA MUKHERJEE 

Pune

The 2019 Lok Sabha elections are a few months away and citizens of a nation are criticizing the BJP government for not being able to establish a green and clean environment till date.

While Modi’s cleanliness drives were ongoing throughout the last few years. And, with a similar initiative, this year 2018, Some citizens of Pune took their own initiative to keep the city clean.

This, noble initiative called ‘Vartaman’ was taken by a group of youngsters, who cleaned the streets of Pune during the Ganesh Utsav. Such initiative was taken by a group of volunteers named Krushna Kumawat(23), Samruddha Katkar(23), Yogesh Gadhve(24), Swapnil Gorai(23), Vinay Varma(24).

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Vinay Varma who is the founder of Butterfly events said, “This was a great experience for all of us. We unitedly did this together. All the people appreciated us and we got the internal satisfaction after working for such a cause.”

Samruddha Katkar who works in the educational institute as HR said, “We did this for almost seven days and were involved in the whole process together. We had great fun altogether and enjoyed what we did.”

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Swapnil Gorai who is the CSR employee, co-founder of Vartaman said, “A large number of people gathered in Pune during Ganesh festival, hence leading to the generation of waste in high quantity. If we look at the root cause of the issue of waste generation we find that it’s the mentality of the people and lack of awareness about cleanliness or lack of ownership towards the city. Hence we decided to attack the roots of the problem, which we did.”
1. The volunteers (approx. 150+) get on the street and make a public appearance and clean the streets, we work with all safety PPEs.

2. The volunteers communicated with people present there and made them aware of the waste disposal arrangements made by the city corporation.

3. Street plays were performed to grab attention and spread the message of cleanliness.
Above steps were taken to keep the city clean during Bappa’s stay in the city. And wished the citizens carry the learnings even after the festival. They tried to create an awareness and influence people to be a better citizen first then a devotee.
The co-founder added, “We are permitted by the Police Dept. Pune, PMC and significant Ganpati mandals. Areas we have covered were Mandai Ganapati, Rajaram Ganapati, Sai Ram Mitra Mandal, Laxmi Road, Appa Balwant Chowk, Tulsi Baug, and other densely crowded areas.