A group of youth, engaged in providing free of cost education to more than 2,000 students of the district launched a cleanliness drive of ponds of Dhanbad. This drive was aimed at spreading the message of round the year upkeep of water bodies, including ponds.

The drive began on Sunday from Lodna pond of Jharia with altogether six members of Jharia based social organization, Samadhan. They cleaned the pond by bringing out the puja paraphernalia like garlands, cloth, flower, fruits, and also brooming around the pond ghats.

The drive that began at around 11.45 am continued till around 2.15 pm. Besides bringing out the puja paraphernalia, they also collected the polythene carry bags, papers, banana branch, some idols frame of sun god immersed after Chhath and other garbage lying on the banks of the pond.

Talking to The Telegraph Online on Sunday, Ravindra Kumar (29), a private tutor of Lodna more area of Dhanbad, said, “Generally all attention of government, social organizations, as well as the civic bodies, is limited to the cleanliness of ponds during Chhath but post-Chhath, all the ponds bear the brunt of negligence.”

“Through our drive we wanted to spread the message that being a part of the community we should not shun our responsibility towards the ponds after completion of Chhath and rather take the responsibility of their upkeep even after Chhath when the cleanliness is most required as a huge amount of puja paraphernalia and other articles are dumped in the pond,” said Ravindra, who also imparts free of cost education to the students of economically weaker section of the society under the banner of Samadhan.

“We also appealed to the local residents to not dump the garbage near the pond and also not allow others from turning the pond ghats into dumping yard of garbage,” said Kumar.

Rahul Kumar (24), another volunteer of Samadhan, who is a resident of Lodna More locality of Dhanbad said, “We will share the photographs of the pond cleanliness work on social media, like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Twitter in order to encourage others towards the responsibility of pond upkeep round the year and especially after Chhath.”

Uttam Sinha (45), a small-time trader of Gandhi road locality of Dhanbad, who also joined the volunteers of Samadhan in the two and a half hours cleanliness drive of Lodna pond on Sunday said, “The need of the hour is to take responsibility for the upkeep of water bodies around us by ourselves and if we keep a little care of these water bodies during the other times apart from the festival, there will be no need to be dependent on the civic bodies to clean the pond ahead of festivals like Durga Puja, Diwali and Chhath.”

Samadhan founder, Chandan Singh said, “We will continue the drive in other ponds of the district for a fortnight and will carry out a similar drive in Singh Nagar pond of Jharia on Monday.”

A group of youth, engaged in providing free of cost education to more than 2,000 students of the district launched a cleanliness drive of ponds of Dhanbad. This drive was aimed at spreading the message of round the year upkeep of water bodies, including ponds.

The drive began on Sunday from Lodna pond of Jharia with altogether six members of Jharia based social organization, Samadhan. They cleaned the pond by bringing out the puja paraphernalia like garlands, cloth, flower, fruits, and also brooming around the pond ghats.

The drive that began at around 11.45 am continued till around 2.15 pm. Besides bringing out the puja paraphernalia, they also collected the polythene carry bags, papers, banana branch, some idols frame of sun god immersed after Chhath and other garbage lying on the banks of the pond.

Talking to The Telegraph Online on Sunday, Ravindra Kumar (29), a private tutor of Lodna more area of Dhanbad, said, “Generally all attention of government, social organizations, as well as the civic bodies, is limited to the cleanliness of ponds during Chhath but post-Chhath, all the ponds bear the brunt of negligence.”

“Through our drive we wanted to spread the message that being a part of the community we should not shun our responsibility towards the ponds after completion of Chhath and rather take the responsibility of their upkeep even after Chhath when the cleanliness is most required as a huge amount of puja paraphernalia and other articles are dumped in the pond,” said Ravindra, who also imparts free of cost education to the students of economically weaker section of the society under the banner of Samadhan.

“We also appealed to the local residents to not dump the garbage near the pond and also not allow others from turning the pond ghats into dumping yard of garbage,” said Kumar.

Rahul Kumar (24), another volunteer of Samadhan, who is a resident of Lodna More locality of Dhanbad said, “We will share the photographs of the pond cleanliness work on social media, like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Twitter in order to encourage others towards the responsibility of pond upkeep round the year and especially after Chhath.”

Uttam Sinha (45), a small-time trader of Gandhi road locality of Dhanbad, who also joined the volunteers of Samadhan in the two and a half hours cleanliness drive of Lodna pond on Sunday said, “The need of the hour is to take responsibility for the upkeep of water bodies around us by ourselves and if we keep a little care of these water bodies during the other times apart from the festival, there will be no need to be dependent on the civic bodies to clean the pond ahead of festivals like Durga Puja, Diwali and Chhath.”

Samadhan founder, Chandan Singh said, “We will continue the drive in other ponds of the district for a fortnight and will carry out a similar drive in Singh Nagar pond of Jharia on Monday.”