A good initiative

Sir,
Ramnavmi is an important religious festival of the Hindus celebrated after the culmination of Navratras. On this day, young girls (Kanjaks) are worshipped as the incarnation of Goddess Durga and the holy ‘saakh’ grown during the Navratras is immersed in water bodies such as rivers, streams etc.But sometimes it so happens that alongwith the holy saakh, people throw the polythene bags and other materials such as flowers, leaves, divas etc.into these water bodies, which causes water pollution and affects life of animals and plants there, besides choking them.As I visited the Holy Devika today to immerse the holy sakh, it was heartening to find some persons asking the people to immerse only the saakh into the rivulet and put the other things at specific places on the banks.They were also making the people, most of them women and girls, aware about the ill effects of using polythenes.On being asked as to which organisation they belonged, they replied that they had been deputed by the District Administration, Udhampur to guide people not to use and throw polythene bags and other non biodegradable material into the Holy Devika.They had collected huge no of polythene bags and dumped them on banks of the river for their safe disposal.Had they not been there, all these polythene bags would have found their way into the Holy Devika adding to the pollution level of the rivulet.The District administration, Udhampur needs to be complimented for this noble initiative and other social and religious organisations too should come forward and depute their volunteers on such days to sensitise people regarding the harmful effects of polythene material.The District Administration and Municipal Committess/Councils should fix notice boards on important places along the rivers warning people against throwing polythene bags and other non biodegradable material  into the water bodies and violators should be fined to ensure free flow of water in rivers and streams.People, on their part too need to change their mindset and develop the habit of immersing only ‘saakh’ in the water bodies and throw non biodegradable materials into the dust bins .The other things such as leaves, flowers etc.must be used to make compost.Coconuts can be given to the people as ‘Prasad’ and chunis to the kanjaks.In this way, we can save our water bodies from being polluted.
Yours etc….
Ashok Sharma
Housing Colony, Udhampur

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