‘Team Bakrid’ to rope in schools to create awareness on hygiene

Hyderabad: With just a month for Eid-ul-Azha, the ‘Team Bakrid’ is gearing up to ensure hygiene was maintained on the second big festival of Muslims. This time the ‘Team’ would be spending more effort on generating awareness amongst masses by roping in educational institutions and conducting rallies by encouraging participation of school and college students in about 60 localities in the city. 

During a meeting of the team members which was held on Sunday, it was decided that besides taking help of NGOs, school and other educational institutions should be roped in generating awareness amongst the localities where maximum wastage is generated on the occasion. Rallies would be taken out in each of the locality with the slogans like ‘Bakrid ke din ek aur zimmedari, Mohalle ki ho safai’ (Another responsibility on the day of Bakrid, ensure locality is clean). 

“Since Islam teaches us to maintain cleanliness it is our responsibility to help civic authorities to clean up the wastage on time. For this everyone should ensure that wastage is dumped in the garbage container and we are encouraging people to help GHMC.  We shall be meeting principals and teachers of the educational institutions in this endeavour,” said the team’s convenor, Mohammed Zia-ur-Rahman, who is leading the team in its third consecutive year.  

The Team Bakrid which had successfully assisted the GHMC cleanup tonnes of wastage in most of the localities the previous year, will be meeting the officials of Wakf Board and City police as part of its preparedness for the upcoming festival. Each year members of the team raise funds which are spent on various activities from awareness generation to transportation is considering approaching the TS Wakf Board to contribute for the social cause. While on the other hand, for the peaceful conduct of the wastage clearing process, the Team members will be meeting the City Commissioner, Anjani Kumar. 

Ilyas Shamshi, one of the active members, who is also leading Reformers Front of India said that the Team Bakrid would take the campaign to next level this year by approaching maximum number of people to ensure that the festival does not create problems of sanitation. “In some of the localities where our volunteers were active, the wastage was cleared within 3 to 4 hours with the help of GHMC. While in some localities like Golconda GHMC vehicles arrived before the wastage could pileup. Some of the officials of the Civic body ensured that the material is disposed off quickly,” he recalled.

BY Md Nizamuddin