BMC mayor Ananta Narayan Jena (left) releases the logo for ‘Clean Bhubaneswar Campaign’. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, April 13: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) plans to rope in celebrities to sensitise people about the need to keep the city clean. The celebrities will go on a door-to-door campaign with the BMC officers emphasising the importance of a participatory approach in making Bhubaneswar neat and clean.

In the past, celebrities have contributed towards spreading awareness about traffic rules and plantation programmes. The latest effort would be part of the ‘Clean Bhubaneswar Campaign’, which begins on Saturday. Besides celebrities from the world of cinema, sports and education, school children will also participate in the campaign.

Lending support to the campaign would be film stars such as, Uttam Mohanty, his wife Aparajita, Bijay Mohanty, Tandra Ray and Siddhant Mohapatra, who is also the Lok Sabha member from Berhampur. Unveiling the logo for the campaign here today, municipal commissioner, Vishal Kumar Dev and mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said the campaign would seek to make people better citizens as the city celebrates its 63rd Foundation Day. Dev said schoolchildren would be asked to scan their area and fine those responsible for keeping the area unclean.

“The students will be given a ‘challan’ book so that they can authenticate their act. The money collected by the students will be used for the development of their own school. Students will be engaged for this campaign rather as community members and future citizens, so that their inclusion ensures better city environment for the days to come,’’ he said.

Students’ leadership contribution towards having a clean atmosphere was first implemented in the country in Rajkote Municipal Corporation and is had yielded positive results.

(From left) Film stars Uttam Mohanty, Aparajita Mohanty, Bijay Mohanty and Siddhant Mohapatra will support the clean city campaign. Telegraph pictures

“We want to replicate it here through this pilot project where two wards — ward No. 22 and 47 — will be included. Seeing the results from the two wards we will implement it in the remaining of the 58 wards,’’ said the mayor.

Apart from including celebrities and schoolchildren in the campaign, the civic authorities are also planning to organise street plays in different places of the two wards along with the launch of the campaign.

The street plays will be performed on topics such as ‘Is it not our responsibility to keep our city clean?’ While two street plays will be enacted in the morning session, three will be performed in the evening.

The campaign will continue for three days each in the two wards.The Commonwealth Local Government Forum – Good Practices Scheme and BMC will jointly fund the initiative and basic funding for the pilot campaign.