Nagpur: “A city cannot be maintained clean and beautiful forcibly. Cleanliness is part of an attitude. If one is determined to change habit and take lead in keeping his or her city clean, then there would be no hurdle in making Nagpur a clean and beautiful city. NMC is launching the unique “Mummy Papa You Too” campaign by roping in students for clean Nagpur city. The role of headmasters and principals is vital for making the campaign successful. All should give their “best” for their city,” Mayor Sandeep Joshi said.
The Education Department of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) and Nagpur Traffic Police are jointly organising the “Mummy Papa You Too” campaign aimed at imbibing cleanliness importance among students. The campaign will be implemented from January 13 to 19 in city.
In the backdrop of the novel campaign, a workshop of headmasters and principals of 1400 schools in city was held at Kavi Suresh Bhat Auditorium on Wednesday. The Mayor addressed the workshop. Other dignitaries present on the dais include Deputy Mayor Manisha Kothekar, Municipal Commissioner Abhijit Bangar, Education Committee Chairman Prof Dilip Diwe, Deputy Chairman Pramod Tabhane, Additional Commissioner Ram Joshi, Education Officer Priti Mishrikotkar, environmentalist Juhi Pandharipande, and other officials.
The Mayor said that children are the best tool to bring about any change and hence civic body’s title of programme is ‘Mummy-Papa You Too’, where the hidden part is that the children say, they are ashamed of their parents as they are littering public places. Through school children, we want to discipline their parents as we believe at least people would not want to hand over a legacy that makes their children hang their heads in shame. Already a meeting was held on Monday with corporators, representatives of Non Government Organisations (NGOs), as NMC apart from its own efforts want involvement of citizens in the campaign to keep city clean, not today, not tomorrow, but forever.
While the actual campaign starts from January 13, prior to that to build up tempo, NMC is holding various programmes involving schools and the children. A meeting with parents on January 11 at 9 am in every school of city well be held. About 500 parents do attend the meet at any school, so NMC is aiming to reach nearly six lakh citizens and impress upon them to treat entire city as their home and help it keep clean just as one maintain cleanliness as our homes, Mayor said.
At the parents meet civic body would depute one speaker who would impress upon citizens co-operation replicating Indore’s success in Nagpur. Mayor said awareness campaign has beenkey to previous success achieved by NMC as rankings improved in last two quarter. A human chain of school children is also planned as part of campaign on January 17, and it would be sort of record in country. Various slogans and debate competition are also organised for students and parents. Responding to queries, Mayor said NMC too is ironing out its deficiencies to improve garbage collection and much change is already noticeable in market places. Now our target is changing mentality of citizens and without it nothing can be achieved. The prize distribution of various competitions will be held on February 2 at Suresh Bhat Auditorium.
