School Education and Environment Minister Om Parkash Soni on Friday led the celebrations of Dussehra festival which is symbol of victory of good over evil, at Naraingarh in the holy city. The festival was celebrated on large scale by Durgiana temple.It is notable that Soni has been leading the celebrations here for around 25 years and the festival is celebrated in religious zeal. While addressing the people gathered to attend the celebrations, the Minister congratulated them and appealed to them to vow to shun the evil on the occasion.“We should adopt the message of the festival and contribute for the society and reduce the pollution in the environment. Nowadays, our society has been trapped by the social evils, corruption, drugs , pollution which are another form of Ravana whose effigy is burnt on this festival. Like Ravana, we should also burn all the evils and become good human being”, he opined.The Minister said, “Punjab government under ‘Tandrust Punjab campaign’ has initiated a drive to eradicate all these evils and drive is yielding good results.
To reduce environment pollution, lakhs of trees have been planted by the government and the social workers and the drug addicts are being provided free treatment in the government owned drug de-addiction and rehabilitation centre”.Exhorting the people to come to fore for the welfare of the city, Soni said reducing the pollution from the city is need of the hour. Not only pollution, our the city is a also facing many other problems. “We should join hands to fix these problems”, he elaborated.Speaking on the stubble burning, the Minister said the government is prohibiting the farmers from the practice that is affecting the living being in Punjab. “The farmers are not only the duty bound to reduce the pollution, but is also the duty of the factory owners to stop creating the pollution of the natural resources like water. If the practice of polluting the water resources continues, our future is not safe. Instead, we should enhance greenery on the earth for our better future”.Prominent amongst those present on the occasion include former health Minister Punjab Luxmi Kanta Chawla, Durgiana Temple committee president Ramesh Sharma, councillor Vikas Soni and Dussehra committee president Vinod Sehdev.