Nirmal: People told to voluntarily participate in clean, green drive

Nirmal: People should voluntarily participate in clean and green drive, stated District Collector M Prashanthi at a press meet at the Collector's conference hall in Nirmal on Wednesday.

She said that the State government has taken up the 30-day special action plan to develop villages and people should participate voluntarily in the action plan to develop green cover and to clean the villages and also to develop in all aspects. People should maintain their surrounding clean and neat to prevent seasonal deceases.

The Collector said that the action plan was started on September 6 and there are 18 mandals and 396 villages in Nirmal district to be developed. Through gram sabhas, 1,188 co-opted members have been elected. To implement the 30-day action plan, four standing committees have been set up in every village across the district. 27,820 members have been appointed in the district. As part of the programme, 396 village special officers, 18 mandal special officers, flying squads and two nodal officers were appointed in the district to supervise the implementation of the action plan. She explained that employees on Monday; NCC and NSS members on Tuesday; IKP, SHG group members on Wednesday; villagers on Friday; and youth and sportspeople will participate in the drive on Sunday.

So far 4,462 drainages were identified and of this 2,264 have been cleaned so far. Of the total 3,612 water pits identified, 1,249 were filled with gravel. 132 houses have been dismantled out of the 1,418 dilapidated buildings that have been identified in the district. 190 dumping yards, 161 graveyards, 121 unused bore wells, and 74 places for nurseries have been identified in the district, she said.

Under Haritha Haram programme, 81,978 saplings have been planted so far. 1,35,934 plants under green zone, 16,48,822 plants under bund plantation, and 1,73,715 plants under community plantation were planted in the district, the Collector explained.

She called upon the people to work like soldiers to develop their villages in all aspects.

Prashanthi urged the people to avoid using plastic bags to make their village plastic-free. She directed the officials to impose fine on those, who dump garbage in drainages, in vacant lands and on roads. They were also told to impose Rs 1,000 fine on those, who don't use individual toilets in villages. The Collector released a CD of songs on 30-day action plan on the occasion. Later she created awareness on prevention of dengue and viral fevers. She informed that no plastic run will be conducted with school and college students, youth, NSS, and NCC on September 25.

Joint Collector A Bhaskar Rao, district forest officer Prasad, DPRO Kareem and others were present.