Mission Nirmal: Amol Balwadkar’s Ongoing Cleanliness Drive Transforming Baner, Balewadi, Pashan and Sus

Pune, October 2025: Amol Balwadkar Foundation continues its large-scale cleanliness campaign, Mission Nirmal, across Pune’s western suburbs—Baner, Balewadi, Pashan, Sus and Mahalunge. Launched on September 21, 2025, to mark Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 75th birthday, the initiative has now become a continuous and community-led movement to keep neighborhoods clean, green, and livable.

A Mission to Make Pune’s Suburbs Cleaner

Mission Nirmal is designed to create long-term civic awareness while addressing daily sanitation challenges such as waste dumping, clogged drains, and neglected public spaces. The campaign, supported by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), focuses on cleanliness drives, waste segregation, beautification, and citizen involvement in every phase of the process.

Former corporator Amol Balwadkar spearheads the initiative through his foundation, ensuring that both municipal workers and local residents play an active role. Dedicated cleanliness wardens have been appointed in each area to oversee ground operations, monitor progress, and maintain communication with the public.

Daily Drives Across Key Locations

Since its launch, Mission Nirmal has been conducting regular cleaning activities across several points in Baner, Balewadi, and adjoining zones. These include busy junctions, residential societies, markets, and inner lanes that often face waste accumulation.

The campaign teams clean public roads, footpaths, drainage lines, and open plots where garbage is frequently dumped. They also place dustbins in key areas and ensure collected waste is promptly removed with PMC’s support. The foundation shares updates through Amol Balwadkar’s official Instagram account, showcasing real-time visuals of volunteers, workers, and local citizens working together.

Recent posts highlight continued drives around Balewadi High Street, Dussehra Chowk, Shitala Devi Nagar, Lakshmi Mata Road, Comfort Zone Society, Golden Trail Society, and other residential clusters. Each update underscores the involvement of citizens, particularly senior citizens, housing society members, and young volunteers who join hands for the cause.

Community Participation at the Core

What makes Mission Nirmal stand out is its citizen-first approach. The campaign encourages residents to report unclean areas by sending photos and Google map locations to the foundation. The team then visits the spot, cleans it, and follows up to ensure maintenance.

Local societies have also started internal cleanliness activities inspired by Mission Nirmal’s model. Awareness sessions and door-to-door visits are conducted to educate residents on dry and wet waste segregation, reduction of plastic use, and proper waste disposal practices.

Balwadkar has repeatedly stressed that the real success of Mission Nirmal lies not only in cleaning visible spaces but in changing mindsets. “Cleanliness cannot be achieved by one foundation or by civic staff alone. It requires every citizen to be responsible and take ownership of their surroundings,” he stated during a community interaction.

Extending Beyond Cleanliness

Apart from cleaning operations, the foundation has taken up efforts to beautify open spaces, plant trees, and maintain small public gardens in various pockets of Baner–Balewai. Some of the cleaned walls and areas have been repainted with awareness messages to discourage littering.

There are also plans to introduce waste segregation awareness drives in schools and colleges, engaging students as cleanliness ambassadors. The campaign team is working on a long-term model to make Baner and Balewadi self-sustaining in cleanliness management, with every housing society acting as an active partner.

Vision for the Future

Balwadkar aims to extend Mission Nirmal to other parts of Pune once the model proves successful in the current zones. The ultimate goal is to make Baner, Balewadi, Pashan, and Sus among the cleanest localities in Pune, setting an example for citizen-led civic responsibility.

As the campaign continues to expand, the Amol Balwadkar Foundation appeals to residents to keep participating and to treat cleanliness as a shared civic duty rather than a one-day effort.

“Mission Nirmal is an ongoing promise,” Balwadkar said. “Our city can be beautiful only when every citizen contributes, every day.”