THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
Stepping up the student participation in the Malinya Muktham Nava Keralam campaign, Haritha Sabhas will be held across the state on Children’s Day (November 14) to give them an opportunity to suggest innovative ideas to strengthen local-level waste management systems.
Civic authorities will organize the Haritha Sabhas in respective local bodies to help panchayats, municipalities and corporations identify flaws, if any, in the second and the most critical phase of the scientific and sustainable waste management movement running up to January 30 next year.
While the Department of Public Education has issued guidelines to the schools under it, the Local Self Government Department (LSGD) recently came out with detailed guidelines to civic bodies on conducting the Children’s Haritha Sabhas in a coordinated way. According to the circular, the students can critically analyse the waste management facilities and make suggestions for improvement.
Students can take stock of the waste-management facilities in their educational institutions. They will further be guided to review such systems in their locality and encouraged to make suggestions to the local bodies for improved services.
Student representatives of all educational institutions will participate in the exercise, irrespective of the syllabus they follow or whether they are government, aided or private. Each Haritha Sabha will have a maximum of 200 students.
Minister for Local Self Government M.B. Rajesh said the November 14 Haritha Sabha meets will ensure greater participation of students in the state’s waste-management campaign. “Our people need to improve their approach towards public cleanliness. Scientific disposal of waste requires updated awareness in society, for which children’s role is integral and it should start from schools. Educational institutions must function as models for this transformation in attitude and habits.”
At each Haritha Sabha, the local body will submit a report revealing the details of the waste-management systems and allied services in the locality. The children can raise questions, to which the local bodies have to respond.
The Children’s Haritha Sabhas come as part of the government’s three-phase ‘Malinya Muktham Nava Keralam’ campaign launched on 15 March this year with clear-cut goals and deadlines.The campaign is aimed at turning each LSGI totally clean, green and healthy, thus making entire LSG institutions garbage-free by March 2024. Besides building a reliable and sustainable waste management infrastructure covering all local bodies, the second phase of the campaign will see the completion of a few remaining targets from the previous phase.
