Srinagar, Sep 14: Commissioner and Secretary, Housing and Urban Development Department (H&UDD), Mandeep Kaur, on Monday stressed the need for greater public participation in keeping Srinagar clean and improving waste management.
Addressing an awareness programme on cleanliness, Kaur, expressed hope that the improved waste-processing system would help Srinagar secure a place among the top three cleanest cities in the country within two years. “We can talk as much as we want about cleanliness, but nothing will change until we start from our own homes,” she said.
Kaur said the government could spend thousands of crores on infrastructure, vehicles and waste-processing facilities, but such investments would not yield the desired results unless people changed their habits and took responsibility for keeping their homes and surroundings clean.
Referring to Srinagar’s sanitation workforce, she said the Municipal Corporation had around 3,000 to 4,000 sanitation workers for a city with a population of approximately 16 to 17 lakh.
“Can such a small number of workers force everyone to maintain cleanliness? They cannot,” she said, urging citizens not to depend solely on municipal workers for sanitation.
She also stressed the need to reduce plastic use, promote home composting and create “Swachhata warriors” in schools and homes to combat garbage and pollution. “Tourists should not say that Jammu and Kashmir is very beautiful but dirty,” Kaur said, stressing that cleanliness was essential to complement the region’s natural beauty.
On Srinagar’s cleanliness ranking, Kaur said waste collection was being carried out effectively in the city, while waste processing had remained a major challenge. “A solution has now been found and waste processing has started,” she said, adding that the project had been prepared earlier but its implementation had been delayed.
Kaur said the Swachhata Internship Programme had been launched as a pilot project in Jammu to take the message of cleanliness to schoolchildren and encourage them to motivate their parents to maintain cleanliness beyond their homes.
She said collective efforts by citizens, along with improved waste processing, would be crucial to achieving the cleanliness goal.—(KNO)
