Aurangabad, July 3:
Hundreds of volunteers and enthusiasts affiliated with various NGOs and government officials have lifted and collected five tones of plastic waste from the banks of Kham River on No Plastic Day or International Plastic Bag Free Day today. The task was performed under the leadership of the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) administrator A K Pandey.
Under the environment promoting scheme Majhi Vasundhara, the AMC, Aurangabad Smart City Development Corporation Limited (ASCDCL), CII, Aurangabad Cantonment Board, Varroc, EcoSattva, NGOs, organisations, and experts with people's participation are contributing their bit under Kham River Rejevunating Project, on every Saturday, for the past six months.
The river rejuvenate project aims at beautifying the river, converting the site into an environment-friendly destination, attracting tourists through providing facilities like solar energy lighting, ground for various sports, managing the rainwater accumulating the river, constructing separate lavatories for men and women visitors, etc.
The AMC administrator inspected the development works done at the river site between Lokhandi Pool to Garam Pani. The head of solid waste management (SWM) cell Nandkishore Bhombe, executive engineer (electrical) A B Deshmukh, Mohini Gaikwad, district mining officer Dr. Atul Gaud, Eco-Satva's Natasha Zarine and Gauri Mirashi, ASCDCL's Aditya Tiwari and Siddharth Jadhav, and AMC's senior sanitary inspector Asadullah Khan accompanied him. He reviewed the cleaning work done in the last week and the tree plantation drive to be implemented on the banks of the river (in Butter Fly Park).
Under the leadership of Pandey, the Udayan Shalini Foundation's girls, volunteers of Animal Welfare Association and 200 citizens participated in the drive and lifted 5 tones of plastic from the banks of the river, cleaned the site, and then planted saplings of various trees. Earlier, Pandey formed a chain of all the volunteers and then apprised them about the techniques to lift the plastic and other waste through the 'United and Conquer' method.
Pandey said, " We will put in our best to develop the site into a visitors' friendly place. We will provide solar lighting, prefer reuse of paver blocks, and maintain the ecology of the site will plant saplings of environment-friendly trees. It will emerge as a Biodiversity Plateau which would be a haven for the citizens to spend their leisure place."