ITC launches Swachh movement in schools at Kukatpally

Kukatpally: Reinforcing its commitment towards building a Swachh Bharat, ITC Limited on Wednesday announced the launch of the "Swachh Vidyalaya" programme in schools.

This is a joint initiative of ITC's WOW Clubs in Schools programme, which is an extension of ITC's 'Wellbeing Out of Waste' (WOW), Department of Education, Telangana State and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).

The programme is created to encourage school students to practise and spread awareness about waste segregation at source and sustainable management of waste.The programme was launched by Bonthu Rammohan, the Mayor, at JNTU Auditorium, Kukatpally.

Baba Fasiuddin, Deputy Mayor, GHMC, B Janardhan Reddy, Secretary, Department of Education, and other dignitaries of the State among school students, teachers and principals of over 400 schools, and stakeholders from government and non-governmental agencies graced the occasion.

The "Swachh Vidyalaya" is a larger objective to create a cleaner and better environment and improve hygiene. This programme would help in reducing dumping of waste in and around the school campuses and address the challenge of environmental degradation. It will also help promote segregation of waste at the source so that all the dry recyclables get recycled and wet waste is converted into organic compost to be used

as manure for kitchen gardens and farmers.

Awareness and motivation among children, who are the future of India, is critical towards achieving and maintaining society's cleanliness goals. Keeping this in view, ITC WoW started "Clean Communities Championship" and "Inter-School Recycling Championship Awards" Ceremonies.

As part of the initiative, the group partners implemented a major awareness campaign across 5,000 selected schools in Hyderabad and Telangana by creating 'Swachh Vidyalaya'.

Sanjay Singh, member, Chief Executive, Paperboards, ITC Ltd., said, "Children are the future citizenry of this nation and their contribution is pivotal for achieving Swachh Bharat and Swachh Hyderabad. We had successfully launched 'ITC-WOW Clubs in Schools' initiative in 2017 with the purpose of raising awareness among school children on waste segregation and further engage them as behavioral change agents for spreading the awareness in their respective neighbourhood areas."