A group of activists from Bokaro and Calcutta involved in saving rivers will take out a cycle rally from the mouth of Garga river on Wednesday to apprise people living in adjoining areas about the ill effects of water pollution and encroachment.
The 20 Bokaro-based activists led by Priti Ranjan Dash (38), a banker-turned-trader of Chas, will be joined by five activists of Calcutta-based Nadi Bachao-Jeevan Bachao comprising Tapas Das, Kallol Roy, Surojit Banerjee, Trilokesh Kundu and Gautam Dey Sarkar.
The two-day rally will begin from the mouth of the river at Kalandibad village in Bokaro district’s Kasmar around 8am.
The team will make a night halt in one of villages along the route on May 29 before completing it on May 30.
Dash and his friends spend two hours every Saturday and Sunday to remove polythene packets, alcohol and plastic bottles and other non biodegradable materials lying on banks.
“Though we have been cleaning the banks in different localities of Chas for more than a year, unless people living in the surrounding areas of the river are not made aware about the ill effects of pollution and encroachment, nothing will change. We have decided to involve every stakeholder, including those living in the vicinity of the river, to ensure its cleanliness,” Dash said
“We will visit every village and slums along the 46.51km stretch of Garga which is considered to be the lifeline of Bokaro. The river flows through Bermo and Chas after originating from Kasmar in Bokaro and eventually flows into river Damodar at Pupunkar village in Chas,” Dash said.
Dash said he came into contact with the Calcutta-based activists during a meeting of National Alliance for People’s Movement (NAPM last year in Bokaro and decided to jointly carry out the awareness programme through the cycle rally.
Talking to The Telegraph over phone from Bokaro, Dash said, “Judicious use of river water can’t be ensured through engineering. It requires involvement of people who are the end users of river water. An intensive awareness exercise is needed to make people aware about the significance of rivers and the cycle rally is quite important in this regard.”
