Cleanliness, plantation drives start at Shalimar Bagh

A massive clean-up drive has been launched at Shalimar Bagh in Kapurthala to revive the historic gardens of to their erstwhile beauty. The Tribune had highlighted the deteriorating condition of the gardens in these columns on June 19.

Kapurthala Municipal Corporation has deployed fatigue teams for the clean-up efforts across the town for over a month. The civic body has also roped in an NGO, Human Rights Press Club, which has been carrying out intensive cleanliness and plantation drives at the Shalimar gardens, along with other areas. The cleanliness campaign is being carried out in phases. The first phase included MC teams trimming tall grass at the gardens, which is being followed by the removal of scrap vehicles that dotted the premises.

The fatigue teams, along with the NGO activists, are also looking into getting non-functional or defunct fixtures, lights etc repaired. The final step of the campaign is tree plantation drives.

Kapurthala MC Commissioner Anupam Kaler said, “Intensive drives have been carried out by fatigue teams as per which scrap removal and cleanliness of the Shalimar Bagh have been ensured. The teams comprising gardeners and safai sewaks, among others, have been on the job. With the help of the Human Rights Press Club and other organisations, plantation drives are also being carried out so that the process of green cover restoration and beautification of these areas may be complete. Apart from this, projects to revive the heritage structures at the Shalimar Bagh are also being pursued by other departments separately.”

Speaking on the encroachments at the Bagh, Kler said, “The place for the senior citizens club premises may have been allotted by the department previously, but we do not consider these strictly as encroachments.”

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Press Club team has been divided into six units, —comprising the students’ wing, women’s wing, team of the chamber of commerce, team of the Kapurthala wing, rural wing and a state-level team of the club — that took turns running the campaign on separate days of the week. The Kapurthala MC also issued open invitations to other organisations in the town to aid the authorities concerned in beautifying

the city.

Jalandhar