The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : ‘Street beautifiers’ rewarded

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Tuesday, Jan 22, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

‘Street beautifiers’ rewarded

Special Correspondent

Jubilee Hills Civic Exnora celebrates 10th anniversary

- PHOTO: NAGARA GOPAL

Helping hand: A group of ‘street beautifiers’ gathers to celebrate 10th anniversary of Jubilee Hills Civic Exnora.

HYDERABAD: A sense of pride and the look of satisfaction on their faces is hard to miss.

For the score of ‘street beautifiers’ working with Jubilee Hills Civic Exnora, its 10th anniversary turned out to be as much as their day as that of four remarkable ladies who initiated the concept of door-to-door collection of garbage 10 years ago.

If the objective of JHCE was to banish overflowing garbage bins and the callous dumping of garbage on the road sides, it was these boys who helped in achieving it by regularly lugging away garbage.

“The mission was not easy to accomplish initially. We would go to households in Jubilee Hills to explain the concept and seek their cooperation in handing over garbage to the boys who come to their doorstep,” recall Indira Lingam, Champaka Rao, Ratna Reddy and Aruna Rao who chose to celebrate the day by rewarding boys for their contribution.

“Looking back we can say the concept took deep roots. We owe this success to the cooperation extended by the then Municipal Corporation officials who allotted us the site for garbage segregation.”

Waste management

Still lot more needs to be done for the success of our zero-waste management programme through segregation of bio-degradable kitchen waste and recyclable waste and re-starting vermin-composting, the members say.

But they did achieve one important thing. Making the boys, some of them homeless understand dignity of labour.

“Initially we did not think much about our work. But looking at the effort put in by JHCE members, we understand the value of this work. We do our bit to keep the surroundings clean and earn a decent living too,” said Raju, Ashok, Gopi, Yadagiri.

The JHCE members encourage the youth to study, learn vocational skills in their spare time.

Gopi who supervises and trains the new batch of boys joining Civic Exnora says, “The street beautifiers work from morning till noon. Rest of the time they are encouraged to study or get vocational training”.

Says Kiran who now makes a living as a driver, “By the time boys move out, they will be in a position to earn some livelihood”.

Environmentalist Capt. J. Rama Rao, Ramachanraiah and others felt it is time Civic Exnora concept is replicated in other residential areas too.

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