The two week drive of Swatch Indira colony Abhiyan under Swatch Bharat Abhiyan commenced at Indira Colony, Manimajra that has being organized by the Urban Health Training Center, Department of Community Medicine and School of Public Health , PGIMER, Chandigarh with Public Health Development Society. Since 2016, PGIMER is conducting Swatch Indira Colony Abhiyaan under the guidance of Prof J S Thakur, Professor ,Department of Community Medicine and School of Public Health, PGIMER with the objective to clean the colony and reduce the disease burden. Dr Har Ashish Jindal Senior Resident, Dr Atul Gupta, Junior resident and Multipurpose Health workers organized a street cleaning drive with a theme “ Swacch colony swasat colony.” Improved sanitation can reduce rates of diarrhoeal diseases by 32%–37%. The resident feel threatened with diseases such as diarrhoea, pneumonia, cholera, typhoid which are preventable. Indira colony has a population of nearly 30,000. and in 2017, 20,912 patients seen at the urban health centre with 843 cases of diarrhea and 86 cases of Acute lower respiratory diseases in children 0-5 yrs.
The sanitary inspectors with sanitary workers with local residents made a tremendous effort to clean the streets of Indira colony. The message during the street cleaning were given to segregate the dry and wet wastes and utilize the garbage cart’s in the colony. The residents highlighted that government must regularize the garbage carts for garbage collection that were irregular in their functionality.The sanitary inspector also highlighted the urgent need but had some resource constraint for garbage carts. The continuous mike announcements were made for swacch colony swast colony. It is expected that disease burden will decrease with adequate safe water and sanitation.
