Also awarded 5-star garbage-free city rating
Noida, December: We all aspire to live in the cleanest possible surroundings, but seldom take ownership of it. Noida, a part of the NCR that has been emerging as a well-planned global city for both residents and businesses, set an example for all the rapidly developing cities with its miraculous display of grit, determination, and responsibility. The city recently bagged 4th position in the Cleanest Medium City (population of 3-10 Lakh) in Swachh Survekshan 2021, an annual survey of cleanliness, hygiene, and sanitation in India.
“Noida deserves to rank 1 in the list of cleanest cities and I hope all the NGOs will work even harder to make it happen. Big thanks to HCLF’s Clean Noida project for establishing Noida’s integrated command control center. HCLF has a very huge role in helping us to sensitise villages and making sure that this movement reaches the rural areas of Noida,” said Ms. Ritu Maheshwari, Chief, Noida Authority, as she thanked and congratulated all the partners working for this movement that helped the city emerge at 4th position from 324th position in 2018.
Her mention of HCLF’s Clean Noida Project made us look into the initiatives up close. The Clean Noida team has been hosting celebratory events across the city to felicitate the hard work and we decided to attend the upcoming event at Nagla Sakpur, an urban village in Sector 134 of Noida. Cleanliness is equal to Godliness – one is reminded of the adage as you enter the locality and witness clean roads, educational graffiti of walls, and functional drainage. The houses are equipped with compost pits, and there are garbage e-loaders, carts, litter picking machines – all provided by the Clean Noida Project as part of their initiative.
HCLF is operating in most of Noida’s Urban Villages under the name Chakachak Villages (performing cleanliness drives), with an exception of eight Model Urban Villages, including Nagla Sakpur. The event was educational in nature to explain to villagers the importance of waste management, how to maintain cleanliness and continue the steps taken to bring about improvement. A local villager Jeety said, “Pichle do saalo mein bahut badlav aaya hai. Mein bachpan se hi yahan raha hoon, par itni saaf sadake and naliya nahi dekhi. Pehle bimaariya failti thi, par ab sundarta hai Sadako aur deewaro par. (In the last two years, I’ve noticed a great change in my village. I am a native resident but have never seen the village so neat. The villages were filthy, allowing diseases to proliferate, but now there is cleanliness and beautification in the village on roads and walls,” – he said referring to the wall arts and graffities painted across.
Another villager Pramod said, “I am really happy to attend these clean drive events, they help us in so many ways. We have also learnt to compost our own waste. I learned how to dispose of waste from my house, earlier we people use to just throw it anywhere, because of which a foul smell used to be around all the time. But now the surroundings just feel clean and fresh.”
The 2-hour celebration culminated with interactive gameplay, refreshments, and a pledge to keep their surroundings clean. We truly hope the on-ground work continues enabling Noida to become a role model to big and small cities in the country.