The 11th Battalion of the National Disaster Response Force marked Mahatma Gandhi's 157th birth anniversary on Friday with a twin cleanliness and plantation drive under the Swachhata Hi Seva and Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam campaigns, stretching from Sahupuri in Chandauli to Manas Udyan in Paharia, Varanasi.
Acting Commandant Santosh Kumar led rescuers through the Sahupuri programme, where the unit combined sweeping, waste lifting and sapling work. In Varanasi, the same day's effort focused on Manas Udyan in Paharia, using the park as a public message point for green cover and civic cleaning rather than only as a ceremonial photo stop. NDRF units based around the Varanasi-Chandauli belt often pair disaster readiness drills with community service on national days; Friday followed that pattern on Gandhi Jayanti.
The battalion's public brief did not release a sapling count or tonnage of waste lifted, so those figures are not invented here. What is on record is the leadership name, the two campaign titles, the two venues, and the date. Separately, Banaras Hindu University's Inter University Centre for Teacher Education marked Gandhi-Shastri Jayanti on campus with academic speakers, underscoring how the same calendar day runs through civic, force and university diaries in the city.
For residents, the practical takeaway is limited but visible: a central force unit spent part of Friday on park and roadside cleaning instead of only on flood or collapse readiness. Manas Udyan sits in a part of the city that draws evening walkers; a one-day drive will not redefine its upkeep, yet it puts uniformed personnel into the same civic chores municipal sweepers handle daily.
Gandhi Jayanti also saw political and social groups hold their own wreath and seminar events across Varanasi, including calls at Ramnagar linked to Lal Bahadur Shastri's legacy. Those programmes are separate from the NDRF schedule. The verified NDRF story remains the Friday Swachhata and plantation push under Santosh Kumar at Sahupuri and Manas Udyan. The 11th Battalion's footprint across Varanasi and Chandauli means the same rescuers who pull people from floodwater also show up with brooms on national days. That dual image is deliberate. Sahupuri's drive carried the Chandauli side of the message; Manas Udyan's park work carried the city side. Neither replaces municipal sanitation contracts, and neither claims to. They add a visible day of labour and a reminder that green cover and clean paths sit inside disaster resilience, not outside it. Residents who walked Manas Udyan on Friday would have seen orange uniforms on ordinary park chores. Chandauli and Varanasi share the battalion's operational map for floods and collapses along the Ganga belt, so a joint jayanti programme fits how the unit already works across the district line.
