Mangaluru, (The Hindu): Ramakrishna Mission, during its 12th week of Swachhata Abhiyan drive on Sunday, undertook cleaning of the areas around Nehru Circle in Pandeshwar here.

About 300 volunteers of Swachh Mangaluru team and employees of Corporation Bank head office were involved in the exercise.

Some stepped into drains and cleaned them, while a few others spruced up road dividers. A large log of wood that had been lying on the road in front of Forum Fiza mall for the past few years, was finally removed.

The posters pasted on the compound walls of the service bus stand were removed. A nearby area, which had been turned into a foul-smelling open-air urinal, was cleansed by pumping water from a tanker.

Students of Sarojini Madhusudan Kushe High School and the bank officials visited hundreds of homes and shops in Pandeshwara and Old Kent Road area distributing awareness handbills and urging them to keep the surroundings clean.

During the previous campaigns, the area in front of Mangaluru Taluk Panchayat and the compound walls were tidied. A team of volunteers painted them giving much-needed facelift on January 21.

Some Japanese citizens too actively participated in the cleanliness drive.

Meanwhile, in nearly 30 villages of Mangaluru and Bantwal taluks, Swachh Gram Abhiyan were carried out under the guidance and assistance of Ramakrishna Mission and Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat on Sunday.