Whistle Army to help clean Meghalaya

Shillong: If you happen to litter roads or lanes in Meghalaya from now on, you might land up in a piquant situation when a child 'jawan' nearby blows a whistle in remonstration.

In a unique initiative, school students have been roped in to become active participants in changing the mindset of people towards environment in this hill state.

The initiative, called the Sustainable Environment through Whistle Army (SEWA), is a brainchild of former chief secretary Ranjan Chatterjee.

"The main objective in empowering the students with the whistle is that they act as the protector of the environment. Children will blow their whistle which acts as a weapon to stop people from violating against the environment such as throwing of garbage, mud, emission of smoke and others," Chatterjee said.

So far, children from 18 different schools have been given whistles after they were inducted into the movement and told what their role would be.

The duty of the whistle-blower would be to prevent people from littering streets or engaging in other means of polluting the environment.

"The students should make good use of the whistles and not blow them unnecessarily," Chatterjee said.