Motihari, Dec. 10: Residents of Motihari Nagar Parishad will now get a special call for their daily household garbage disposal, as garbage vehicles will now use sirens to inform residents of their arrival every morning.

The Nagar Parishad introduced this new method a fortnight ago in the larger interest of public hygiene. It is also part of the town's cleanliness drive in the centenary year of Champaran's Satyagraha.

In accordance with the new system, garbage disposal vehicles will play a recorded message about the importance of sanitation, and how residents can help keep the town clean by dumping their regular garbage in the vehicles.

Following the message, will be a siren which will be blown for a whole two minutes so that residents are alerted of its arrival.

Pradeep Kumar, a resident of the town's ward number five hailed the move. "Before this system, we would dump our garbage on the roadside dustbin and the vehicle would take it away the next day. As a result, it would remain dumped on the road for a whole day. As residents have begun dumping their garbage directly into the vehicle, our locality has witnessed a marked improvement in sanitation."

Another resident, identified as Nimija Mani of ward number 30, said: "The practice should continue and not stop after a while. Residents will definitely cooperate if the civic body is serious about keeping the town clean."

Some residents wer not entirely happy and felt the civic body was violating rules by using a siren.

Social activist Pankaj Sinha said: "Though the aim is pious, the civic body is violating rules as the siren can only be used for vehicles carrying VIPs like the governor, chief minister, high court Chief Justice, ambulances and fire fighters."

Nagar Parishad executive officer Amar Mohan Prasad seemed to agree. "I had just suggested to play some music and message to make residents aware of the arrival of the garbage vehicle. If sirens are being used, those would be removed immediately," he said.

Amar added that apart from its pro-active role to involve residents in the special sanitation drive, the civic body will organise a competition on public hygiene in January 2017 to further generate awareness about sanitation. A report on the drive will also be submitted to the Centre in hopes for attaining financial help in their drive against unhealthy habits.