The Rajpur Community Initiative, a citizens’ initiative for improving Rajpur, has collaborated with local NGO Waste Warriors to start a revival project in the area. Rajpur was one of the most scenic and beautiful areas of the city with many picturesque locations and places of heritage value. In recent times, littering and open dumping has had a terrible impact on the cleanliness and beauty of Rajpur.
This project currently is being funded through personal contributions of Rajpur Community Initiative Society members and aims to transform Rajpur and restore its lost glory. The project was launched on the weekend with a clean-up at the Rajpur Chowk. Members of the Rajpur Community Initiative, Waste Warriors staff and local residents participated in this clean-up drive.
They were joined by 24 students from Moravian high school, foreign students of a yoga centre, and 12 students from the Department of Social work of the SGRR (PG) College. Gloves, garbage bags and litter pickers were provided to the volunteers and over the course of the day they were able to collect about 10 bags of recyclables and 15 bags of non-recyclables from the area, a total of 230kgs.
Along with cleaning up, the volunteers also interacted with local shop owners about the need of keeping the area clean. The clean-up received immense support from the locals and many onlookers also joined the clean-up seeing the efforts being done for the area. Jonathan, an Australian tourist, residing at Rajpur, who joined the clean-up said, "Rajpur is a very scenic place and it is very disheartening to see people throwing garbage on the roadsides, in open plots and in the forests. I will join the clean-up every week and contribute to making this a better place."
Waste Warriors will be providing two waste workers to come each day to clean. The transformation drive will begin with cleaning up from the turning point of Rajpur Market towards Old Mussoorie Road, and segment wise will keep moving up. To deter littering, dustbins will be installed at strategic places for the general public to use.