Cleanliness is intrinsic to every religion. It is said that cleanliness is next to godliness. Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of peace & religious harmony, laid great stress on cleanliness that inspires Swachh Bharat Mission.
It was a privilege to meet religious & spiritual leaders of various faiths in Delhi to discuss ideas & suggestions which when implemented at places will assist this urban mission gain momentum & sustainability.
We have seen several innovative practices being successfully implemented at places of worship; hope they inspire all others. To recall a few from among many, in Ujjain, pilgrim’s old discarded clothes are being turned into handmade papers.
In Shirdi Sai Mandir, floral waste is being used to produce incense sticks by two devotees & sold within the temple premises. Ashura Mubarak Festival of Bohra community, despite a whopping attendance of 15 lakhs devotees, was celebrated as a zero waste event.
Nada Sahib Gurudwara in Panchkula, which caters to food for more than 2,000 people daily, has set up a biogas plant with treatment capacity of 100 kg. ‘Astha’ in Delhi is distributing cotton bags, promoting ‘bartan bhandar’ & composting of food items in temples. And many more...
We unanimously decided to promote composting of wet waste in all religious premises, & discourage devotees/visitors from using any kind of single use plastic like thali, chammach, kanta, katori, glass, straw, bottle, polythene bags, anything with plastic wrapper etc.
All the religious leaders agreed to celebrate plastic free festivals, or any other individual/social/religious celebration. Decisions taken today will help in #MakingCitiesPlasticFree.
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During my recent visit to National Botanical Garden in Lucknow, I discovered many wonders of God’s own nature, some extremely beautiful plants that are being conserved/researched here. I immediately had the urge to capture these beautiful plants & learn about their nature & being
I would like to share all the aspects & beauty of these plants, one each day in this series of ‘Plants of National Botanical Garden, Lucknow’.
I am sure you all, my nature loving friends, would be happy to know about these & visit this garden soon!
Visited LightHouse Project site (LHP) at Perumbakkam in Chennai today. Hon’ble PM laid the foundation of this work of constructing 1,152 G+5 houses on 1 January 2021. Ms Sirke is using Precast Concrete Construction Technology from Finland to deliver this work in less than a year.
Was extremely impressed to see the progress on site. On the one hand, raft, base concrete slab etc are going for 4 towers, precast elements like roof slab, hollow columns, stairs etc are being cast in a temporary factory type of set up around 200 metres away from the site.
A Third Party expert body will be monitoring the quality.
Ms Sirke’s senior official told me that they guarantee life for 100 years & if maintained well, these houses will last for many more years. Could observe resource efficiency, speed & meticulous precision work on site.
Heartiest congratulations to Govt of Tamil Nadu & their Koyambedu Tertiary Treatment Water RO Plant in Chennai for receiving Global Water Award 2020 for Wastewater Project of the Year!
It is an AMRUT funded Project to convert secondary treated water into better than drinking quality level.
Visited this Plant today. It is getting 60 MLD secondary treated water from the STP set up in adjoining plot, with capacity to produce 214 MLD water.
With this, after purifying through detailed process, consisting of stabilising, filtration with different levels of porosity & ozonisation, it delivers pure water with high quality.
This water is being taken by pipes to over 60 kms to be consumed by various industries.
Reviewed progress of flagship urban missions in Tamil Nadu today in Chennai. With nearly 50% urban population & 664 cities/ towns, this State is the most urbanised State in the country.
With focus of on enhancing ease in living & improving urban landscape, huge investments have been made in TN by my Ministry in last 6 years.
These include central assistance, State/ City contributions, individual investments & PPPs under various missions/ schemes.
Under AMRUT, works worth over ₹12,500 cr have been taken up on water/ sewer systems & accessible green parks. Over 6.5 lakh water & nearly 14 lakh sewer connections have given, around 4 lakh street lights turned LED etc.
Inspected 9 km metro section of Washermenpet to Wimco Nagar, which is ready for inauguration by Hon’ble PM tomorrow at 11 am in Chennai. This section covers very thickly populated areas of Northern Chennai.
It connects to large number of public/private huge sector industrial units & now connect them to airport, major railways & inter/ intra-city bus stations. Happy to interact with empowered transgender operators, who are fully trained to run New Washermenpet Station.
Wimconagar is themed on Swachh Bharat Mission. Happy to visit Aavin, a TN Milk Cooperative Booth & TRIFED Stall with Tribal India products as pioneer public facilities on the stations. The whole setup is is geared for tomorrow’s event.
Visited the Integrated Command & Control Centre (ICCC) developed by Chennai Smart City today. As a brain & nervous system of the city, it is delivering many services to improve quality of life of citizens.
For example flood control & rain water monitoring on real time basis with sensors/cameras help in better preparedness & quick response to any calamity.
It is used for solid waste management.
Garbage collection vehicles are tracked, health of 210 water bodies measured, citizens' grievances managed. It is also being used as a citizen service portal. Many other applications like citizens’ safety, traffic & public transport services, water/sewer SCADA are getting added.