Ukhrul youth conduct post-festival clean up drive
Source: Chronicle News Service / R Lester Makang

Ukhrul, June 11 2022: The much-awaited Shinri Lily festival has come and gone.

But it has left a lasting imprint of a mess that refuses to go even long after the days of revelry and celebrations are over.

The festival is one of the most important cultural events for the people of the state, organised by Manipur Tourism Department every year in May to promote the state flower Shirui Lily.

However, the way festival-goers left behind huge piles of trash has exposed the ugly side of the heavily populated celebrations.

Varied sorts of garbage were found strewn on the sides of the roads as well as at the celebration venues.

This certainly smacks of decadence of the important festival as well as acute lack of eco-responsibility among the organisers and the attendees.

In a bid to ease the mess, over a hundred like-minded youths drawn from different walks of life initiated a drive to clean up the littered roadsides and gathering sites.

"The cleanliness drive was initiated by a group of like-minded people from Ukhrul on seeing the blatant littering of waste on the road sides.

Travellers and visitors during the Shirui Lily Festival 2022 had haphazardly disposed of plastic bottles and food wrappers on the road sides", said one of the participants of the drive.

On Saturday, a cleanliness drive was taken up from Ukhrul town to Phangrei, a popular picnic spot, covering a stretch of 22 km.

The drive which was conducted as the second phase of the initiative was participated by a total of 120 volunteers.

Earlier on June 8, the first phase of cleanliness drive was carried out from Finch corner to Ukhrul town, covering a distance of 20 km.

During the drive, around 87 young volunteers collected a truck load of waste from the roadsides and disposed of it at the waste disposal site maintained by Ukhrul ADC in Hungpung village, along the Ukhrul-Imphal road.

Among the participants were Women of Hungpung Unit for Social Advancement (WHUSA), Career Pathfinder, Langdang Youth, Lunghar Youth, Shirui Youth and Student's Union, Hao Riders, Hills Rooster Sports Academy, Meiphung Production House, Youth Light, Rising Youth, Chiko Adventures and well-wishers.

According to the participants, a crowd funding was initiated on social media for conduct of the drive and there was a massive response from the public.

They expressed gratitude to all the well-wishers and supporters for their generous contribution towards the initiative.

The cleanliness drive was successful because of the generous contributions made in kind and money and the volunteers who turned up in huge numbers from all walks of life; they said.

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