The Local Self-Government Department (LSGD) in Kerala is set to organise Haritha Sabhas across the state on Children’s Day, November 14. This is an effort by the government to ensure student participation in the Malinya Muktham Nava Keralam campaign.
Through the Haritha Sabhas, it is expected that the students will get an opportunity to come up with innovative ideas to improve waste management.
Both the Department of Public Education and the LSGD have issued guidelines for local bodies and schools for the smooth conduct of Haritha Sabhas, to ensure proper coordination. The joint circular issued by them says that the students will get to analyse waste management facilities critically and suggest ways to improve their functioning.
According to The New Indian Express, students can first learn more about the waste-management facilities in their schools and colleges and will be made to review existing systems in their localities later. Then, they can come up with suggestions to improve the waste management systems of the local bodies.
The exercise will include student delegates from all educational institutions, both government-aided and private. Each Haritha Sabha would be limited to 200 students. MB Rajesh, Minister for Local Self-Government, stated that the Haritha Sabha meetings of November 14 will increase student participation in the state's waste-management initiative.
“Our people need to improve their approach towards public cleanliness. Scientific disposal of waste requires updated awareness in society, for which children’s role is integral and it should start from schools. Educational institutions must function as models for this transformation in attitude and habits,” Rajesh elaborates.
At each Haritha Sabha, the local body will submit a report revealing the details of the waste-management systems and allied services in the locality. The children can raise questions, to which the local bodies have to respond.
The children's Haritha Sabhas are part of the government's three-phase Malinya Muktham Nava Keralam campaign, which began on March 15 this year and includes specific targets and deadlines.
The initiative aims to make every Local Self Government Institution (LSGI) clean, green, and healthy, with the goal of making all LSGIs garbage-free by March 2024.
The second phase of the campaign will see the accomplishment of a few outstanding targets from the previous phase, in addition to the construction of a dependable and sustainable waste management infrastructure spanning all local bodies.
