Cleanliness drive initiated by singer Mansingh ahead of CWG

NEW DELHI - Renowned classical singer Sonal Mansingh and students of several schools and colleges participated in a cleanliness drive here on Tuesday to keep the city clean and to develop civic sense among citizens ahead of the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

“By this ‘Clean Delhi Green Delhi’ my Delhi, my life, my thinking that needs to be purified. No, it cannot be done. As I have said, even if Lord Krishna comes on earth, he also cannot clean it in one night. This is the reality of today,” said Mansingh.

“We should understand that we all should be part of this,” she added, maintaining that the Yamuna River could not get cleaned, not even with divine intervention.

Students holding banners shouted slogans of ‘Clean Delhi, Green Delhi’.

“We are taking out this campaign as we wanted to tell the people that here, pollution level has gone up and lot of garbage is there, leading to water stagnation. The visitors who will come to Delhi for Games, we wanted to show them that our Delhi is clean,” said Anjali, a school student.

Mansingh later swept the roads along with the volunteers.

The cleanliness drive is a part of a series of initiative planned to make Delhi-NCR a cleaner place in addition to freeing the city from garbage, and moving towards a common goal that Delhi becomes a more environment-friendly place to live.

The 2010 Commonwealth Games, which kicks off on October 3 is India’s biggest sporting event since the 1982 Asian Games.

India is expecting about two million tourists in New Delhi for the Games, as well as about 10,000 athletes from 71 teams representing 54 Commonwealth member states. (ANI)