Members of Rotary Club of Jamshedpur Steel City and Carmel Junior College students take part in shramdaan at Sonari on Wednesday. Picture by Bhola Prasad

A civic campaign in Jamshedpur gathers momentum, two good friends at a time.

For its six-month-old Zimmedar Nagrik, Zimmedar Shahar campaign, Jusco earned the friendship of Rotary Club of Jamshedpur Steel City and Carmel Junior College on Wednesday.

And these new-found friends also walked the talk at a three-hour arduous clean-up activity, part of Jusco’s shramdaan.

In fact, the Rotarians had got 30 Class IX students from Carmel Junior College — all members of the Interact, a Rotary wing for youngsters aged between 12 and 18 years — to chip in and become young ambassadors of civic responsibility across over two acres in Sonari between the school and the gurdwara.

The area, dotted with residential high-rises and individual holdings, has an elite population of roughly 5,000.

Yet, its open spaces have the usual culprits — polythene bags bursting with leftover food, household refuse, empty packets of chips and so on.

Around 8am on Wednesday, the 30 Carmelites, 20 Rotarians and 10 Jusco representatives had already gathered in Sonari, armed with full cleaning gear — gloves, masks, caps, brooms, shovels and pushcarts.

Quickly and efficiently, they started picking up the garbage and towing them in pushcarts to nearest Jusco or Jamshedpur Area Notified Committee (JNAC) vats.

Jusco maintains civic amenities of the Sonari neighbourhood in front of Carmel Junior College, but the area behind the school falls under JNAC.

“From this morning (Wednesday) onwards, Rotary Club of Jamshedpur Steel City will ensure this locality is kept free of litter and plastic wastes. In fact, we were thinking of doing so since Zimmedar Nagrik, Zimmedar Shahar campaign was launched last July. But, the shramdaan in Jubilee Park on January 2 by school students was extremely inspiring. Then, we thought, let’s roll up our sleeves right away and get to work,” said club president Inderjit Ghosh.

“Rotary Club of Jamshedpur Steel City is the first organisation to have joined us in our shramdaan for a cleaner city,” Jusco spokesperson Rajesh Rajan said.

Thanking the Rotarians, he said: “We are excited over the step taken by Rotary Club of Jamshedpur Steel City and hope more such outfits join our campaign to make our city a better place to live in.”

Rotary Club of Jamshedpur Steel City and Jusco together have also hired an agency — M/s Jamuna Enterprise — to clear out vats and unclog drains every fortnight. Jusco, on its part, will also clean dustbins and vats every three-four days.

“We will ask students who are our Interact members to start door-to-door campaigns on why people should not litter the city and instead dispose of waste. We also want them to stop using drains as dustbins. If anyone dumps litter in a drain, it will automatically clog the flow of wastewater,” Ghosh added.

Common sense, an uncommon quality.

Are you doing anything to keep your neighbourhood clean?

Tell ttkhand@abpmail.com