Campaign for cleanliness

With a view to creating awareness among the city dwellers about cleanliness, an organisation embarked on a clean-up drive at DC hill premises in Chittagong city yesterday. 

Yoga Probhati, a group that arranges morning exercise at the premises, organised the event joined by around a hundred volunteers.

Starting from 7:30am, the cleaning activities continued till noon.

Housing and Public Works Minister Engineer Mosharraf Hossain joined the drive.

While talking to The Daily Star, he said he walks in the capital's Ramna Park every morning. “I see people throw garbage here and there, although there are 250 bins in the park.”

For a cleaner country, people have to develop their civic senses, he said.

“When our people go abroad, we see they maintain cleanliness. But these people are oblivious to cleanliness in their own country,” said the minister.

“I have joined the campaign today to create awareness among the people regarding cleanliness,” he said.

He also talked to the visitors and asked them to keep the area clean. The minister said, “We will provide 100 bins at DC hill premises.”

Dr Sujat Paul, a professor at Chittagong Medical College, also joined the campaign.

He said, “When I went to Bhutan, I saw a slogan that reads: 'Let us not wait for someone to clean; we can do it'."

It motivated him to launch a clean-up drive in the city with the help of Yoga Probhati members, he said.

Manik Rudra, general secretary of Yoga Probhati, said when they come to exercise at DC hill premises every morning, they feel very bad to see the pile of garbage here and there.

“So we decided to clean the premises by ourselves,” he said, adding, “We thought we should not wait for any service providing organisations to clean the area. Rather we should start it ourselves so that others feel inspired to clean their own premises.”

“If everybody keeps their own premises clean, the whole city will become cleaner,” he said.