My River, My Valentine: A successful drive to clean up Mula-Mutha ‘The river is my Valentine’ sentiment appreciated: Deshpande

Pune: The spirit of cleaning the river as a Valentine and the initiative for it is exemplary, asserted the Chief Electoral Officer of Maharashtra Shrikant Deshpande.

On behalf of the Worship Earth Foundation (WE)’, in collaboration with Pune Municipal Corporation, a cleanliness campaign was conducted on Sunday morning in the Bhide Pool area, Mutha river basin under the initiative ‘My River, My Valentine’. Shrikant Deshpande, Senior Chartered Officer, Collector Dr. Rajesh Deshmukh, Dnyaneshwar Mulay (AFS), a Member of the National Human Rights Commission, James Pulham of New Zealand who won the title of Iron Man ten times, Parag Mate Founder of Worship Earth Foundation, Raj Deshmukh, Co-founder Worship Earth Foundation, and CEO Tejas Gujarathi were present at the platform. ‘WE Foundation’ has been making efforts for the conservation of rivers for many years.

On this occasion, the youth took an oath of conservation and cleanliness. Thousands of volunteers from many colleges, Ganesh mandals, and social organizations in and around Pune participated in this campaign. The issue of the conservation of rivers is very important. In this background, activities like ‘My River, My Valentine’ will help in creating awareness among the people, Deshpande said. Central and state governments are trying to conserve rivers through various schemes. If people’s participation increases in it, it will definitely help to change the shape of the rivers. Such activities will give it good momentum. Therefore, Collector Deshmukh appealed that such activities by foundations as WE should always be implemented.

On this occasion, the college youth gave the message of river cleanliness through Bharud and street plays. Various organizations working for water and river conservation were honoured on this occasion. In this, Girish Patil of Jalbiradari, Raosaheb Nichit of Jaldindi, Upendra Dhonde, Satya Natarajan, Veena Patil, Colonel Suresh Patil of Greenthumb, Satish Khade were honoured with Mula-Mutha Award.

Villu Punawale Foundation, Finolex Pipes, Mukul Madhav Foundation, National Service Scheme Department of Savitribai Phule Pune University, Nehru Yuva Kendra, etc. have received support for these activities. Around five thousand students from various colleges and hundreds of workers of the Foundation cleaned the river from seven in the morning to ten in the morning. Many Punekars also enthusiastically participated in the activity

Raj Deshmukh moderated the program while Amrapali Chavan thanked the audience. Campus ambassadors from 40 colleges along with Altaf Pirjade, Suraj Shirale, Neha Gawli, Ashish Jagdane, and Vaijenath Panchakshari worked hard for the success of the program.

I would like to thank We Foundation and hundreds of youth present today for My River, My
Valentine event. As rightly said by Mr. Shrikant Deshpande, river is the symbol of our culture and we
have big rivers in Pune, which are also our spiritual heritage. Central and state governments have
various schemes to conserve nature like Swach Bharat Mission, Majhi Vasundhara, etc. on which
our municipal corporations and municipality are working together. However, people participate in
these initiatives in large numbers then we can definitely achieve success in preserving nature for
our future generations.” – Dr. Rajesh Deshmukh ( District Collector, Pune)

The Government of India has taken the issue of water conservation very seriously. Sewage is the main reason for the pollution of the rivers. Everyone should segregate the dry and wet waste properly so that the municipal authorities will take into the dumping or processing yard and process it in a proper way. Don’t throw your trash anywhere and everywhere. As citizens, we have to take responsibility for cleanliness as well as conserving our water bodies.” – Ashok Babu Nelapatla (Director, National River Conservation Directorate)