President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has entrusted the Police to carry out a special programme to ensure a clean environment, its protection and, the facilitation of general beautification of neighbourhoods, both urban and rural. General public health, safety and convenience are the objectives of this initiative, government sources said. Under this programme, Police units will be assigned to monitor environment protection projects as well as to strictly monitor and detect activities by the public, commercial enterprises or, even the public sector, as well as any incidents which cause environment degradation and damage, the Daily News learns. The President’s programme was initiated yesterday in the Colombo city area under the watchful eyes of police officers.In this first activity, key areas in the Colombo city such as the Pettah Bo-Tree junction area, Galle Face, Independence Square were cleaned by workers assigned to the task as well as volunteers from the police sports unit under the watchful eyes of police officers. Police sources disclosed that special units are to be established in all Police divisions in the country. The capacity of already established units will be enhanced to enable better implementation of this programme.All institutions which are entrusted with the environment cleanliness, protection and beautification are to be streamlined by the special police coordination unit set up for this purpose.