550th Birth Anniversary Celebrations of Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji
By Amrit Pal Brar
Sultanpur Lodhi
Wednesday, October 2, 2019
On the auspicious occasion of the 550th Prakash Purab celebrations of Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji and under the directions of Government of Punjab, District Administration, Kapurthala and Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) joined hands by launching “Shramdaan” today – on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi – for making Sultanpur Lodhi the first single-use Plastic-free city of Punjab.
Er. DPS Kharbanda, Deputy Commissioner, Kapurthala and Prof SS Marwaha, Chairman, PPCB led the campaign the campaign from the heart of the holy city from Talwandi Chaudhrian Road by administering oath to the residents and school students that they will shun the use of single-use plastic, and will help propagate this message in the society.
In addition to the administrative officials, officials of PPCB, Municipal Council, Sultanpur Lodhi, Education Department and the Rail Coach Factory (RCF), Kapurthala joined hands with about 500 school students, who spread out in fifteen teams, thirteen of which went to the thirteen wards of Sultanpur Lodhi town under stewardship of the respective Municipal Councillors while the rest two fanned out to distribute compostable carry bags and jute bags amongst the 600 odd shopkeepers in the town.
In the wards and the market areas, the teams especially the school children created door-to-door awareness among residents and sensitised them about protecting environment through using biodegradable products, and distributed 4000 jute bags in residential areas and about 2 lakh compostable carry bags, which get decomposed within three months, to the shopkeepers free of cost.
The teams also used pick-sticks to pick plastic waste from the waste material lying in and around shops and houses, and collected about 400kg single-use plastic in just few hours, which was handed over to the MC, Sultanpur Lodhi with directions to further hand over the same to the recyclers.
The residents were informed about the ill-effects about using single-use plastic.
During this campaign, Rahul Chaba, ADC (General), Kapurthala, Navneet Kaur Bal, Asst. Commissioner (General), Kapurthala, Charumita, SDM, Sultanpur Lodhi, Er. Gurinderjit S. Majithia, Chief Environmental Engineer, PPCB, Er. Harbir Singh, SEE, Er. Arun Kakkar, EE, Er. Kuldip Singh, EE, Baljit Singh, EO, MC, Sultanpur Lodhi, Bikram Singh, Dy DEO (Secondary), Kapurthala and other officials of PPCB were also present.
