A female pourakarmika participating in a program in Mysuru on Monday.
Women pourakarmikas in Mysuru city exchanged their brooms for bows and arrows as part of an archery program held on Monday.
About 40 women pourakarmikas participated in an archery program organized by Tiger Adventure Foundation in collaboration with Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) at Seervi Samaj on KRS road in Mysuru on Monday as part of International Women’s Day and Swacch Survekshan.
Mysuru Regional Commissioner Nitesh Patil inaugurated the program by himself picking up the bow and shooting the arrow. MCC Commissioner, Sheikh Tanveer Asif, who was also present, hoped that many such programs would be conducted in the future.
Dhanalakshmi, a pourakarmika, said she had seen archery only in TV serials like Mahabharat and Ramayana. “I never dreamed I would be holding a bow and shooting an arrow,” she said in a statement shared with the host.
The program concluded with a formal felicitation ceremony to honor the Pourkarmikas women for their vital role in keeping Mysuru clean. Veena Ashok, an amateur cyclist from Mysuru, presented each with a rose, a shawl (shawl), a thank you card and a certificate, recognizing their “laudable and tireless” efforts to maintain the city’s status as a leading clean city, the organizers said in a statement.
DSD Solanki, an adventure sports enthusiast who was part of the organizers, said the archery program gave pourakarmikas, who often remain in the shadows of the very streets they clean, an opportunity to “break the cycle of invisibility”.
“Their work is grueling and often thankless. Some take to the streets with brooms to sweep endless lanes and by-lanes, while others jump into cars to collect trash from thousands of households. Despite being the ‘carriers’ of public health, their services are rarely recognized by the society they serve,” organizers said in a statement.
Published – 9 March 2026 21:16 IST
