Students sweep Lalbagh neat and clean

Students sweep Lalbagh neat and clean

Hundreds of NSS and scouts volunteers with Horticulture Department personnel went on a cleaning mission.

Deccan Herald

Did you know that Lalbagh botanical garden, one of the most sought after tourist destinations and an eco-sensitive place in Bangalore, is left battered and scarred after the close of each public event.

This time around, it is the annual flower show that has left its trail of destruction.
According to official sources, the clearing up of the garbage and litter discarded by thousands of tourists on Thursday alone would take at least three days to clean up. More than two truckloads of garbage is likely to be collected, as nearly one lakh visitors have reportedly stepped into Lalbagh to enjoy the last day of the flower show on Wednesday. The Horticulture Department has employed 15 extra personnel to speed up the cleaning work.

Meanwhile, all is not lost in this dismal scenario. Samarpana, a city-based voluntary organisation along with hundreds of National Service Scheme and Scouts volunteers have picked where the visitors have left off. Volunteers from as far as Tumkur and Kolar joined hands to make success the ‘Keep our Lalbagh clean’ campaign.

Week-long drive
This week-long drive launched on January 20 was aimed at inculcating a sense of ‘civic sense’ among visitors who were found littering the place. The volunteers even interacted with some of them about keeping their environs clean and even readily cleaned up the garbage thrown by them to drive home their points. Some of the visitors were heard complaining of shortage of dustbins in the garden.
Elaborate street plays which depicted the need for using dustbins along with chanting slogans formed part of the week-long campaign.

Then why not restrict the tourist entry into the botanical garden during public shows? For this, Horticultural Department Director Vasanth Kumar says that such drastic measures would not be adopted as Lalbagh provided a wealth of information to the general public. However, he was quick to add that his department was planning to take measures to restrict the entry of plastic into the garden.