The Mysuru City Corporation has stepped up its green initiatives by augmenting the existing fleet of e-vehicles for the purpose of waste collection.
In all, 15 e-vehicles were inducted on Thursday, June 1, and they were donated by ICICI Foundation as part of its corporate social responsibility (CRS) initiative. With this, the MCC’s fleet of e-vehicles has gone up from six to 21.
The MCC Health Officer Dr. D.G. Nagaraju said it was a CSR contribution from the ICICI which had made similar contribution for Information Education and Communication projects of MCC a few years ago.
He said the keys were handed over to the Mayor Shivakumar, Deputy Mayor G. Roopa and MCC Commissioner Lakshmikanth Reddy and would go a long way in eco-friendly mode of collecting and disposing off solid waste.
The MCC has 280 vehicles including tippers and trucks for garbage collection and the expansion of the fleet of e-vehicles will not only be eco-friendly in terms of emission but would be economical as well due to the resultant savings on conventional non-renewable fuel like petrol or diesel.
Going forward and subject to clearance and approval by the elected council, the existing vehicles running on conventional fuel could be phased out gradually and the shift made to induct more e-vehicles and those running on CNG, said Dr. Nagaraj.
On the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, he said that two teams from the Centre has already visited Mysuru and they have also taken public’s feedback besides, conducting ground observation. But in view of the electioneering process and the staff deployed on poll duty there was no major public outreach exercise by the MCC.
But, Dr. Nagaraj said the exercise is more digitised and messages were sent. In addition, the city-cleaning is a 24x7 endeavour and various kinds of programmes takes place on a regular basis. At present, the MCC is engaged in Nanna Jeevana Nanna Swaccha Nagara or Meri Life Mera Swachh Shahar campaign to promote the 3R concepts of reduce, reuse and recycle among the public.
Already the MCC vehicles are moving in different wards of the city making announcements to hand over any electronic wastes or reusable waste of any kind so that it could be recycled.
In addition to the ongoing and continuous efforts of the MCC to keep the city clean, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has taken up a massive drive to clear plastic waste from the Outer Ring Road. This is part of the World Environment Day initiative and the drive will be held on Sunday.
