In order to raise public awareness on segregation of waste, Municipal Corporation of Dehradun on Monday flagged of Swacchta Rath. Mayor Sunil Uniyal ‘Gama’, Dehradun district magistrate C Ravishankar, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Arun Mohan Joshi and municipal commissioner Vinay Shankar Pandey together flagged off this first Information Education and Communication (IEC) tool.

The Swachchhta Rath will also be giving warning and necessary precautions to be taken against dengue and other aspects to keep the surrounding clean. The warnings and awareness procedure will be done in the same manner as the recorded voice announces the arrival of Doon waste management vehicle. The IEC tool will be used in all 100 municipal wards till September 14. During this time, Har Ghar Dastak which will be a door to door campaign regarding waste segregation and to encourage plastic free society will be organised. With that awareness activities such as camps in schools to inform students about waste segregation at source

will be conducted. Also, felicitation of ragpickers will be done by the authorities at MCD.

Meanwhile, the phase-wise implementation of source segregation of waste in the municipal wards has also been initiated in the first five wards that are Mata Mandir, Race Course North, Race Course South, Rest Camp and MKP. The implementation will be done in 69 wards only.

It is pertinent to mention here that during the meeting attended by the Dehradun mayor, DM, SSP and municipal commissioner, the issue of encroachment was also discussed.

They key point of the discussion was to identify a place to shift the street vendors and roadside cart vendors who anyway operate in the city illegally, to a particular case. According to officials, the plan is to develop a certain vending zone for these people so that they can continue earning and MCD can raise some revenue out of it.