A holy pit to keep Ghaziabad clean.

IN A novel effort to prevent Hindon river from getting polluted, the Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation ( GMC) has set up a huge prayer chamber filled with Ganga water along the banks.

The chamber, or ' hawan kund', will be used for immersing flowers and other objects used in religious rituals. Currently, these are thrown into the Hindon and are a major pollutant.

To facilitate the transport of such ' religious' waste, the corporation has acquired special carrier vehicles for each of its five zones -- Kavi Nagar, Vijay Nagar, Mohan Nagar, City and Vasundhara. They will be used for ferrying the waste from different parts of the city. The vehicles have been painted in vermillion ( red) and yellow -- colours depicting Hindu mythology.

Their drivers will be dressed in red- and- yellow uniforms too.

The vehicles will have the telephone numbers of the disposal service painted on their sides.

The corporation has also placed boxes at temples across the city to collect waste.

" Rising pollution in the Hindon has been the biggest challenge before us. Even after putting up railings along the bridges and their peripheries, people did not refrain from throwing waste into the river from vehicles and trains," municipal commissioner Ajay Shankar Pandey said.

" We were thinking how to stop people from dumping waste into the river. This scheme was initiated keeping the people's religious sentiments in mind," he added.

" Ganga water in the chamber along the river will be according to Hindu traditions as it has great mythological significance," Pandey said.

" It wasn't possible to send vehicles to every house. Temples in each locality will serve A GMC employee in red-&- yellow uniform empties waste from the collection box of a temple into his carrier vehicle.

in Saharanpur and passes through Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar districts.

This tributary of Yamuna was proposed to be cleaned up under the second phase of the Yamuna Action Plan. Over the years, religious waste and untreated effluents from factories have raised pollution levels of the river alarmingly, threatening aquatic life.

According to the latest data, Ghaziabad has 492 religious sites -- 55 in Mohan Nagar, 123 in Vasundhara, 98 in Vijay Nagar, 112 in the city zone and 104 in Kavi Nagar.

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