Pollution board aims to make city litter-free

The Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) in association with the Civil Defence Wardens-Bangalore and a few city-based corporates have embarked upon a project to make Bangalore litter-free and plastic-free.

In a step towards achieving this, 'Hasiru Kattu' "" a green code movement for the city has been launched.

Addressing a press conference on Thursday, B Venkatesh, member secretary, KSPCB, said, "The initiative (Hasiru Kattu') will start with trying to make Lalbagh a plastic litter-free zone first and then implement it in phases in other parks and finally the whole city."

"We are initiating this through a movement "" Lalbagh today, Bengalooru tomorrow. Lalbagh will be our testing ground and we hope to correct the drawbacks before launching it in other parks like Cubbon Park and in localities," he added.

'Hasiru Kattu' "" will begin with a 'Lalbagh Clean Up' initiative on March 16 by involving 3,000 to 5,000 volunteers. For the clean-up programme, 240 acres of Lalbagh is being divided into 100 blocks and each team consisting of 50 or more people will be responsible for each block.

The volunteers are to collect, segregate and transport the solid waste collected out of the park.

For this green initiative, corporates like Bosch, International Tech Park-Bangalore, Coca-Cola, TCS, O&M, Spice Communications, Avesthagen, Hindustan Unilever and FeedBack Ventures have signed up as volunteers.

"After the park is cleaned up, litter wardens will being appointed to create awareness on cleanliness and benefits of green pollution-free environment for a week.

Following this, from March 23, the Lalbagh management will impose fines ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 400 depending on the nature of violation," said Jija Harisingh, DGP, Home Guards and director, civil defence.

"To ensure a litter-free and a plastic-free Lalbagh, about 200 Home Guards personnel are being deployed at all the gates to check food vendors and frisk people from entering the park with plastic bags or other plastic disposable items," she added.

Explaining the 'Hasiru Kattu' initiative, Jija Harisingh said, "The initiative is an effort to bring together all those who care for the city and wish to preserve and nurture the environment. Through this green code movement, we plan to create awareness among the people to work together to keep the city clean, green and litter free."