Print Media Coverage of our Effort

Dear all:

We thank Avinash Bhat of New Indian Express for covering the efforts of Swachh Bharat circle members in his article below.

http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/bengaluru/Citizens-Discuss-Garbage-Woes-Online/2015/01/10/article2611918.ece

We also encourage all members of media (in this circle) to create awareness about this initiative. We need all state Government civic agencies and state leadership to join the respective constituency/city local circle so more on the ground cleanliness action can take place and for this awareness creation is critical.

Ministry of Urban Development

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Citizens Discuss Garbage Woes Online

An online platform provided by the Ministry of Urban Development has found several users in the city who are trying to find solutions for civic issues.

Using Localcircles, a community platform on social media, the Ministry in October last year announced that it had launched several ‘circles’ or groups for each major city. The groups already had over 2 lakh members last year, and the number is growing exponentially.

Bengaluru already has four circles in the north, south, central and rural parts of the city with around 3,000 members discussing topics like night-time disposal of garbage, formation of area groups to speak to civic authorities, organisation of local cleaning drives, etc.
As the main user maintaining these ‘circles’, the Ministry has not slowed down on participation after its launch. Every week sees a new debate and views and opinions are invited and incorporated into checklists, instructions and statistics.

For example, a sample post reads, “You can invite by going to the respective local circle or sharing the easy invite link - http://tinyurl.com/qgoejsr with your contacts and social networks. We will place them in the right local circle automatically.”

Each circle will also have two citizen circle administrators, who will be responsible for a smooth flow of information. Besides monitoring and coordinating posts, the volunteers will also be responsible for arranging events, speaking to local officials as well as sharing success stories.

There are several projects one can choose to work on. For example, a poll of 2,30,000 members of the national circle resulted in a checklist on ‘How to minimise the use of paper in daily life’. “These projects give participants a sense of accomplishment. It is nice to see the government taking an active step to involve citizens in some forms of governance,” said Siddharth R, a member of the Bengaluru Circle.

“This social media platform enables citizens to easily come together, exchange ideas on cleanliness, take up appropriate activities in their neighbourhoods, share pictures of collective efforts, engage with elected representatives and take the campaign forward. The national circle, Swachh Bharat, advises participants on keeping their neighbourhood clean. Further, it also enables considered and collective inputs to the implementing agencies on a regular basis on issues like garbage collection and disposal, promotion of civic sense and interventions, if any, required from the concerned agencies,” a statement from the Urban Development Ministry said.

How to join?

To access the Swachh Bharat circle, you can visit http://www.localcircles.com and use invite code - SWACHHBHARAT. Once accepted, you can also search for local circles and apply to join them.

An Android app is also available for smartphone users. more