Bhubaneswar: As the New Year steps in with new hopes and aspirations for the City of Temples_ in a first of its kind initiative _ the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) today distributed plant saplings of different varieties, books and cotton bags to inspire and motivate people to have green gifting ideas. It is generally observed that around the New Year people tend to gift more and through this process they generally go for packaged gifts and ultimately creating tones of wastes out of which most are non-biodegradable ones. The BMC initiative, on the other hand, will help people be aware of the new “gifting ideas like gifting a sapling, books and most importantly cotton bags as the ban on polythene bags is in force. Initiating the inspiring step BMC Commissioner Prem Chandra Chaudhary said “we have appealed the public to adopt green gifting ideas through our “Go Green Campaign and our employees of BMC are following it. We hope through this activity at five places across the city people will be motivated to adopt such step in their day-to-day lives. They would also tend to use the cotton bag gifted by BMC when they will go for shopping/outing. Adding further the BMC Commissioner said “the citizens should know that the city is theirs and they have to take green initiatives to make it clean and green. We hope people should adopt the suggestions of the Civic body and use gifts with less or zero waste generation potential. At five other locations i.e. Panda Travel Mart District Centre Chandra Sekhar Pur, Ganganagar near Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, BMC-Bhawani Mall Saheed Nagar, near State Museum and I Love Bhubaneswar Plaza similar gifting activities for saplings, books and cotton bags continued between 10 am and 1 pm. As part of the campaign a mobile van in collaboration with Axis Bank also launched a “Mu Safaiwala Rath through which eco-friendly cotton bags were distributed and awareness was created for “Swachh Bharat and “Swachh Bhubaneswar. BMCs collaboration with the bank was under its “Progress Through Partnership initiative as it has become a hallmark in BMCs peoples connect initiative across the State Capital. Indu from Unit-III, Sabita Dei from Saheed Nagar Telugu Basti _all working women _who took saplings at the morning distribution point near BMC were hopeful that such initiative will help the city become more greener as in the recent past natural calamities have mostly affected the green cover. Another woman Lalita Jena and student Lipsa Barik praised the initiative as it would not only help in retaining the lost greenery, but also help control climate change worries as local weather conditions also influence global systems and vice versa. The five distribution points at CS Pur, Ganganagar, BMC-Bhawani Mall, State Museum and I Love Bhubaneswar Plaza also witnessed good response from the public . Today BMC distributed 2,200 cotton bags, 1,000 books and 2,600 saplings through five distribution points and one in the early morning hours near BMC gate. Related Comments comments

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