FIVE MONTHS ago, a group of 10 men sporting white T-shirts and green fatigue trousers, and carrying brooms, choppers, chain-saws, spades and rock-climbing equipment, set out on a mission without precedent. They were out to clean a 500-year-old fort spread across 11 km.
It was a formidable challenge: heaps of garbage rising up to four feet, trees with roots running deep into the 39 ramparts and walls, encroachments, and snakes and scorpions in its crevices. But today, a 6-km stretch of the Chandrapur fort in Maharashtra has been restored, in an effort that has been hailed by local officials and the archaeological department as a model.
Called Chandrapur Killa Swachchata Abhiyan, and driven by Chandrapur-based Eco-Pro, the mission has involved students, government employees, shopkeepers, autorickshaw drivers and doctors in a team of about 75 volunteers working in turns from 5 am to 10 am.
This voluntary efforts can easily be replicated elsewhere too. Why we have to wait for the govt authorities to wake up ....
Read more of this excellent report by Vivek Deshpande published in The Indian Express.....
