Shahtaz Khan/Pune

Adar Poonawala may be the most sought after person in the world by the governments looking to get the Covishield vaccine from his Serum Institute of India (SII) but for the residents of the city where he was born and his family takes its name from, he remains a household name for his initiative to make it the cleanest city of India.

His global fame today has started making some Punekars start calling him Adar Covishieldwalla.

Adar Poonawalla, who inherited SII from his father Cyrus Poonawalla and become its CEO in 2001 was among the first to launch the 'Clean City Initiative' program after being nominated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan (SBA) on October 2, 2014.

APCCM garbage collection vans moving on the city roads

Besides the usual funds earmarked by his company for the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Poonawalla committed and Rs 100 crore to launch the 'Adar Poonawalla Clean City Movement (APCCM)' in January 2015.

In between APCCM had prepared a scientific model for solid waste management with Nobel exchange environment solutions and the Pune Municipal Corporation.

Today Pune generates over 1700 ton of waste of which 52-55% is wet waste. When such wet food waste is segregated and removed separately at the source, the rest of the inorganic waste like plastic, metal, paper, rags, etc. is scientifically processed and effectively recycled.

This ensures minimal inputs into the landfill and frees urban land for more useful purposes.

The APCCM processes over one lakh tons of wet waste every year, with 109 acres of landfill areas being cleared up. This wet waste removal is expected to result in 542 tonnes of carbon emission saved.

College students taking part on Plogathon and a poster of the campaign

APCCM’s ubiquitous section trucks and other mechanized vehicles can be seen moving on the roads sucking dust, picking wet waste from thousands of dustbins installed along the roads for scientific disposal and filling the potholes.

The APCCM started with cleaning 30 km road and has since touched 800 km milestone. Its target is to clean the dirt of 1200 km of city roads.

The citizens see modern types of equipment like gluten vacuum litter picker, trilo vacuum truck and truck mounted road sweeper etc moving around and picking the solid waste and sucking dust to make them all proud Poonawallas.

The APCCM had deployed 200 trucks and has a staff of 450 employees working in a radius of 600 km. 

Just pumping money into the city’s cleanliness is not Poonawalla’s way; he has done enough to generate awareness to get the support of the public in his endeavour. The APCCM campaign started from schools and colleges so that the youth are involved.

Under the influence of Adar Poonawalla, students of The Bishops School organized the first Plogathon in Pune on 5 June 2019.

Polgathon is a Swedish tradition of picking garbage while one is jogging. Adar Poonawalla's Clean City Movement and the Metropolitan Municipality had joined hands in organizing the first Plogathon. A large number of people had reached Kalyani Nagar to participate in it.

APCCM machine cleans a clogged sewage drain

Adar Poonawalla and his entire team of APCCM were present in the event. He spoke to the runners and gave them a lot of information about how they can contribute to making Pune a beautiful city.

These events have become common in the city and youth organizations launching such events quite often to remove solid waste littering around in the otherwise beautiful city.

The Pune City, known for its scenic splendour, cool climate and being the latest IT hub was ranked the 15th cleanest city of India (2020) – a long way from being placed at the 37th slot in the last survey.

Labika Khan, in charge of APCCM’s Polgathon events says the Covid-19 has delayed their plans of holding plogathons. Swara told Awaz-the Voice that as soon as the pandemic will be over, the whole team will be on the roads to make Pune clean and beautiful.