Bhubaneswar, May 10: Seventy-year-old Pramila Patra, a resident of Kathagola Basti in Bapuji Nagar, has spent most of her free time over the past few days talking to her neighbours about the health hazards and environmental impact of open defecation.

Her neighbour, Banita Naik, has gone a step further by constructing a toilet in her home, with little or no help from her husband.

Pramila and Banita, although working in their individual capacities, are just two of the hundreds of people who are trying to realise the civic body's dream of a clean, open-defecation free capital city.

Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and Bhuban-eswar Smart City Limited (BSCL), its special purpose vehicle for implementing the smart city project, have joined hands to make the city clean under the Swachh Bharat Mission. They have formed two squads of volunteers, Nighrani Committee and Banar Sena, for realising that goal as quickly as possible.

These volunteers will take part in awareness campaigns and convince people about the need to make Bhubaneswar garbage and open defecation free. The campaign will mainly focus on the Bhubaneswar Town Centre District along Janpath. The squads have already hit the ground running with volunteers working on convincing slum residents about the health hazards of open defecation as well as its enviromental impact.

"The citizen groups and individuals have contributed a lot by motivating people, especially slum dwellers, to make the city free from open defecation and achieve the cleanliness dream," said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena.

The groups have been closely watching the activities of slum dwellers and have also sought to prevent them from polluting their surroundings. Civic body and BSCL officials are helping the volunteers.

Local councillor Mahamaya Swain was full of praise for Pramila and Banita. "They have sent a message to the neighbourhood and it has made people think. Their work is inspiring others.''

The civic body has already decided to declare the entire town centre district area open defecation free on August 15. As part of the initiative, it has targeted the nearly 25 slums in the area. The BSCL has also constituted a team, calling it a feedback foundation, which is looking after the initiative alongside the groups and the individuals.

"A private security personnel died on the railway tracks near Satya Nagar last month while he was answering nature's call in the morning. This has had domino effect in the area and instilled fear among the slum dwellers about such practices. There is a need to motivate people to construct toilets so that they would not have to defecate in the open and face such tragedies," said Saheed Nagar area councillor Saswati Mishra.