Green Protocol Helps Turn Pongala Festival Clean and Safe

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
The intervention of Suchitwa Mission and the city corporation with a ‘green protocol’ turned the Pongala Festival of the Attukal Bhagavathy temple in the city on Sunday clean and safe with thousands of woman devotees and organisers complying fully with the guidelines in this regard.

Responding to the call to shun use of single-use plastic and other polluting material, the devotees converged for the festival with steel plates and steel glasses, which made a marked difference to the festival this time.

The campaign mounted by the green army volunteers of Thiruvananthapuram Corporation and resource persons of the Suchitwa Mission with the support of the temple trust ahead of the festival highlighting the theme “Green pongala, Safe pongala’ created great resonance among the devotees and organisers of various related activities like free distribution of food and drinking water in every nook and corner of the city.

Wherever isolated cases of use of polluting use-and-throw materials were found, the enforcement squad and resource persons intervened promptly to get them removed.

The green protocol and the action plan were drawn-up based on meetings held at the office of the Local Self Governments Minister Shri M B Rajesh, with the District Collectorate and the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation since February 10.

A hashtag campaign with posters was mounted on social media highlighting the central theme and the guidelines to be followed by organisers of food distribution drives, shop owners and voluntary groups.

A ‘Plastic-free Pongala’ campaign was also launched jointly with the District Collectorate and Information Bureau and training given to the ‘Green Army’ to be deployed by the Corporation during the event.

A focussed awareness campaign was organised for shop owners on the matter. Suchitwa Mission had deployed Resource Persons in various locations in the city to support the Green Army on the festival day.

Suchitwa Mission Executive Director UV Jose congratulated the green army volunteers, resource persons and the temple trust for their dedicated work and cooperation for the successful implementation of the green protocol.