Pune: The Pune Municipal Corporation’ (PMC) announced the ‘Swachh Awards’ a month ago for best practices solutions in the area of solid waste management, hygiene and sanitation across the city. 
However, the civic body did not get good response from citizens. Now, it has decided to extend the dates for submitting entries.

Joint Municipal Commissioner Dnyaneswahar Molak said, “The PMC has extended the date of filing of applications for Swachh Awards - 2020. Till date, we received over 100 applications. Due to elections, we received low response. Hence, we decided to extend the deadline.””

He appealed to people to participate in the competition. He said, “Last year also, we had extended the date. This year, the last date of filing nominations was October 31. Now, it is November 30.”

The objective of the competition is to encourage citizens’ participation; promote awareness of initiatives taken by the city towards garbage-free, open defecation-free city; provide innovative and creative solutions, to be validated by an experienced jury; institutionalise existing systems through online processes and create awareness among all sections of society about the importance of working together towards making towns and cities a better place to live in. 

PMC has categorised awards such creative content (best short film, Best Jingle, Best Music video, Best selfie with safai sevaks, Best painting and drawing, best slogans); innovative solid waste management initiatives taken up under various categories such as best Swachh house, society, school, college, private organisation, NGO and hospital.  

The prize money will be Rs 51,000, Rs 21,000 and Rs 10,000 for the first, second and third winners, respectively, in each category. There are six categories such as Best initiative by household, Best performing school/ college, Best performing housing societies, best performing private sector entity, best performing NGO and Best performing public sector entity. The PMC has allocated Rs 24 lakh for these awards.