About 50 volunteers of ‘Making a difference by being the difference’ (MAD), undertook a cleaning-up drive and awareness programme at Sahastradhara with the assistance of the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun.
“Sahastradhara is one of the iconic picnic spots of Dehradun, which is very famous but if we don’t do something about its dilapidated ecological condition very soon, it will become world renowned for its waste polythene, public apathy and gross governmental neglect,” remarked MAD member Syed Manzer Imam.
The volunteers conducted the cleaning up drive while also engaging the tourists, the local people and shopkeepers to adopt environmentally sustainable means of waste disposal.The drive was also conducted outside the picnic spot area and covered the areas adjoining Sahastradhara. After around three hours of work and collecting large quantities of garbage dumped in the open, the volunteers remarked that a combination of Government inefficiency and public apathy was responsible for the deteriorating state of Sahastradhara.
The garbage collected by the volunteers was transported away by a municipal vehicle provided by the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun.