The National Service Scheme (NSS) volunteers of Maharaja’s College sought to bring about that change by embarking on a
novel initiative to celebrate NSS Day on Saturday.
Around 100 of them assembled at the college in the morning, hoisted the flag and walked their way to the Ernakulam KSRTC
depot around 9 a.m. where principal Ajitha P.S. inaugurated the initiative to tidy up buses.
Split into groups, they cleaned the messy KSRTC buses, both interior and exterior. In the campaign that lasted till afternoon,
they cleaned as many as 10 buses.“The campaign was an eye-openerin that it made us realise how dirty the buses we often
travel in can become. So, it was not surprising that it took us over an hourto clean a bus,” said Julie Chandra, programme
officer of the NSS unit at the college and assistant professorin the chemistry department.
The volunteers chose to clean KSRTC buses to set a model for other voluntary organisations.“When we contacted the KSRTC
authorities, we were told that there were only eight staff members at the depot to clean the buses. So, we thought our
campaign would be of help to them,” said Ms. Chandra.
By 12 noon, the volunteers had cleaned nine buses and then had to wait for a while before another bus was available. Shortly
thereafter, they wound up the campaign.
