Mysuru: N Mara, President of Mysuru Mahanagara Palike Pourakarmikara Sangha who is a cleanliness worker with Mysuru City Corporation for the past nearly 30 years visited Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia a year ago and is spellbound by the cleanliness practised in these countries.

Welcoming state government’s initiative of taking pourakarmikas on foreign tour to study best practices he said, “Though Mysuru has emerged as the cleanest city in the country for the two consecutive years, there is still a lot of scope for improvement. There is still lot to learn from foreign countries, especially Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, which I visited last year. In Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore we can’t see any dirt thrown on the road side. All the three countries’ streets are spick and span; the systems which they have adopted are not the same in India. In foreign countries, if anyone dumps waste on the street, they are fined. Hence they try to put the waste only in the dustbin but in India most of the people are not bothered. In the last few years the mindset of the people is also changing and they have started avoiding putting waste on the streets”, added Mara who is trying is his level best to implement some of the best practices which he had seen during his foreign tour.

He also mentioned that people in Singapore and Malaysia themselves dump their kitchen waste in waste farm. “The kitchen waste is collected in a bag and dumped by every individual in the waste farm. In foreign countries, the system makes the people keep their premises neat and clean. If there is any violation including putting waste on the street, notice will be served and one needs to pay a hefty fine. Once in two months, the local corporator along with his ward people takes up cleanliness drive. To keep city neat and clean, public participation is also very important. It’s really a good initiative from government to take pourakarmikas to foreign tour. Really, it motivates our pourakarmikas to do better and change their style and mindset” added Mara who is a die-hard fan of Rajinikanth.

Mara who is also confident that Mysuru will be awarded the cleanest city tag for the third consecutive year in the country also mentions that Rajinikanth movies and also his words also motivated him to take up good practices in life including in his profession. “Due to efforts of our corporation officials including Corporation Commissioner Jagadeesh, Mayor Ravi, health officers Nagaraj and Ramachandra and corporators, we will definitely be declared as cleanest city for the third consecutive year.”