Waste-line of 5 Gomti ghats reduced by 25000 MT: Greens

LUCKNOW While many people like to spend their Sundays at home, a group of city-based environment enthusiasts gathers at different Gomti ghats early in the morning on weekends to rid the river of waste.

The group, ‘Go For Gomti’, comprises of both young and old volunteers who rid the river of waste. Nearly a year after their initiative started on May 7, 2023, the group claims to have removed 25,000 metric tonnes (MT) of waste from five ghats after nearly 50 such drives.

“Kudiya Ghat, Peepe Wala Pul, Mankameshwar Ghat, Jhule Lal Vatika and Shyam Mandir have been revived with the support of Lucknow Municipal Corporation,” said RJ Prateek Bhardwaj, founder of ‘Go For Gomti’.

“Started with only eight members, the group now has over 2,500 people attached to it. They are called ‘Gomti Mitras. All of us reach a designated ghat every Sunday morning and clean it for around 1-2 hours. No volunteers know each other but they have breakfast together at the end of the work,” said Bhardwaj.

“We also did ‘bhu visarjan’ of 20,000 idols during Diwali,” said another member of the group.

Bhardwaj said listening to PM Narendra Modi’s ‘Mann Ki Baat’ gave him the idea for the ‘Go for Gomti’ initiative. “I was listening to the PM praising someone for cleaning his city. So, it immediately struck me that we can also do something about the Gomti, which is in bad shape,” he said.

The group has members in age-groups 17 to 70 including women, people from sports background, corporates and students.

To create awareness, the group has been promoting its initiative with placards during cricket matches at Ekana stadium. Recently, the National Book Trust also gave space to the group in its book fair to promote their work.