Shimla: Shimla Environment, Heritage Conservation and Beautification (SEHB) society, which is handling a faltering door to door garbage collection scheme in the municipality, is on the lookout for new way to keep the city clean.
To encourage registration with the society and help out in the garbage collection, the society has drawn up plans for holding a lucky draw for all registered under the scheme and to award prizes to the lucky winners. At the same time those not registered are to be short listed for record purposes.
Under the scheme, bio- degradable and non-biodegradable household garbage is separated and for that purpose multiple dustbins have been distributed to the residents.
There are about 400 SEHB employees working under the scheme but many have not shown interest in the MC efforts to keep the tourist city clean of garbage. To overcome public apathy the society has chosen this strategy.
In every city ward, every month there would be a lucky draw, said Umesh Kumar Bharti, the city chief health officer.
Till date there were about 35000 people registered in the scheme and SEHB is conducting a survey to know the exact number of unregistered households.
Though the Shimla municipality started the door to door garbage collection scheme about a year ago, but not much change has come out.
Many residents complain that the society was not doing a good job as the garbage collectors were not regular in visiting the households in their beats, leading to pile up in homes that needed immediate disposal. This often caused littering that was further messed up the large number of monkey population in the city.
Nirmala Chauhan, a councilor from Totu ward confessed, “the garbage collection scheme needs to be improved and it is important to enroll maximum number of people.”
Speaking about the awarding prizes, Bharti said, “the scheme was awaiting approval of the municipal commission before it is implemented in the city.”
Photo: Dharam Prakash
An intern at Hill Post, Dharam Prakash is pursuing masters in journalism & mass communication at Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla.
Previously, he has worked as an intern at Dainik Jagran Ltd.
A young journalist in making, Dharam Prakash loves to blog and writes what he believes in.
This is very much required in all towns and cities. You can take any city and will see garbage lying around every corner of the city. We need to clean up our cities before they transform into just garbage bins.