HARIDWAR: The Gayatri Pariwar, a social organisation based at Shanti Kunj in Haridwar, launched a massive campaign to clean the Ganga on Ganga Janmotsav day (Ganga Saptami) on Sunday.Groups of volunteers with buckets and brooms in their hands descended at the ghats early in the day. They collected garbage and disposed it of properly before washing the ghats.
The cleaning exercise was conducted simultaneously at all ghats on the river’s banks from Gomukh to Gangasagar, which is a 2,500-km stretch. Cleaning of ghats of some other rivers and water bodies was also carried out, the organization claimed.
As Gangadhar Chaudhari, one of the Shanti Kunj volunteers said, the volunteers after attending the symposium on Ganga in the morning performed Ganga pooja at the Har-ki-Pauri. After that, they were divided into groups and dispatched to various Ganga ghats in the city. At the ghats, they collected all sorts of garbage, including plastic, polythene and clothes littered there and dispose those. Then ghats were swept and washed.
At Haridwar, around 2,000 volunteers from Shanti Kunj and a dozen other educational and social institutions, including Care College of Nursing, SMJN College, Haridwar Nagarik Manch, Mahamana Sewa Sansthan, Sewa Bharati and Devabhoomi Poorv Sainik Manch cleaned the ghats from Saptarishi area to Pul Jatwara, it added. Earlier in the day, a symposium aimed at creating awareness among the masses on the issue was held at Rori Belawala ground.
Shanti Kunj has been involved in the cleaning Ganga exercise for the past four years on Ganga Saptami on which the river is considered to have descended on earth. While the day is celebrated by organising different programs related to Ganga by various organizations, especially the Ganga Sabha, Shanti Kunj volunteers also engage themselves in cleaning the river.“It is essentially an awareness campaign. Our students are gladly taking part in it,” Care College of Nursing director Preeti Shikha Sharma said.
Gayatri Parivar chief Pranav Pandya ji addressing the audience at the symposium said that “the purpose of a token cleaning of Ganga is to create mass awareness.” Senior superintendent of police Krishna Kumar VK said that “unless cleaning Ganga becomes a people’s movement, the goal of a clean Ganga cannot be achieved.”
Vinish Panwar, leader of Team Ek Shuruaat, a group of youths from Rohalki village said that “such initiatives may go a long way to check Ganga’s pollution.”
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/dehradun/shanti-kunj-volunteers-ngos-launch-campaign-to-clean-ganga/articleshow/63871926.cms