Cleanliness drive in 1,800 places of worship across Mysuru district

MYSURU: How to use the centres of beliefs to send the loud message of waste segregation and clean environment? In the district now the message of waste segregation at the source which is key to make the environment garbage-free is sent through the places of worship.
As part of this exercise, 1,800 places of worship including temples, mosques and the churches will be provided with two bins to start the waste segregation exercise.The priests and the villagers will help the devotees to use the correct bin to drop the waste instead of mixing everything together resulting in the piling of garbage in the vicinity.

This project Namma Uru- Namma Sharadha Kendra (our village- our place of worship) is launched by the Shri Kshethra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project BC trust (SKDRDP BC Trust) headed by D Veerendra Heggade, Dharmadhikari, Shri Kshetra Dharmasthala. Under this initiate, all these 1,800 places of worship will be used as a platform to send the message of waste segregation. All these 1,800 places of worship will be given two bins.
"Instead of throwing the wastes into the water bodies or in the public places, the devotees will be asked to use these bins. From banana, coconut left over to the clothes, everything will be segregated into wet and dry wastes. The devotees will be guided by the heads of the religious places including priests," explained V Vijay Kumar Naganala, District Director, Shri Kshethra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project, BC trust (SKDRDP BC Trust), Mysuru.
"Under the initiative, we convinced the locals, our members and the devotees to carry out the cleanliness drive in a frequent interval- from once in a week to once in a month. We have involved the locals in this exercise. The trust is providing the equipment for this cleanliness drive," he said.
According to Shekhar SB, a farmer leader from Saligrama in KR Nagar taluk, recently they carried out the swatch Abhiyan in collaboration with the trust in the famous Yoga Narasimhaswamy temple. "We segregate the waste every day and hands it over to the local garbage collection centre once in a week," he said.
How the places of worship selected: According to the trust authorities, the temples of worship are selected by the locals including the self-help groups by contacting the management of the local temples, mutts, churches, mosques etc. The focus of the cleanliness drive includes the approach roads, water bodies including puskaranis, rivers, the sanctum etc. "We want to use the places of worship to help the people to understand the message of the cleanliness," concluded Vijay Kumar.