Delhi gets its 'heart' back on World Environment Day nearly after a month

New Delhi: Nearly a month after a 'heart' sign in a decorative display on a street in Karol Bagh in Delhi was allegedly stolen, the city on Sunday got its 'heart' back.

A new LED signage in a heart-shape has been installed in its missing portion, and the redone signage was dedicated again to the public on occasion of the World Environment Day, municipal authorities said.

The incident was reported early May and the the image of the missing 'heart' in the 'I Love Delhi' signage at a public place in Karol Bagh had gone viral, drawing amusing comments from netizens, with some saying they were "hearbroken" to see "Delhi's heart gone missing" while others had shared memes using lyrics from various Bollywood songs.

"After the incident, many ordinary people started taking interest in the signage, and apparently some passers-by had added a makeshift 'dil' to fill the gap. And, then a private radio station also did a kind of a competition to design a 'heart'. But, today we have filled the missing space with a new LED heart-shaped red signage. Delhi has got its 'heart' back," a senior official said.

However, weeks after this incident, the three muncipal corporations were merged into a new single entity, which came into being on

May 22.

However, the signage still carries the old nomenclature — 'Karol Bagh, North Delhi Municipal Corporation'.

Days after the 'heart' sign was allegedly stolen, the then NDMC had poetically appealed to people to "steal hearts" of others and "not 'heart signs from public places".

Also, to mark the World Environment Day, the Karol Bagh zone of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi partnered with Delhi Street Art and Plogman of India, along with an MCD-run school's students to clean up streets of Rajinder Nagar.

The children exercised and picked up garbage and pledged to keep their city clean.

Also, the MCD official Twitter handle shared tweets on multiple events hosted on the occasion of World Environment Day.

"Central Zone enthralls Delhi with 'I LOVE DELHI' structure created from scrap to planting one Harshingar tree (known for medicinal utility) in all 28 dispensaries in the zone, Wall painting & Island Beautification on #WorldEnvironmentDay #MCDCares," it said.

"School kids of Shahadra South Zone stroked their creativity brush to paint their green world & also planted fruit bearing trees like Jamun, Mango, etc in schools on #WorldEnvironmentDay. 850 trees & 1250 shrubs planted," the MCD tweeted.

Children don the mantle of 'Swachchta Doot' in their colonies in West Zone on #WorldEnvironmentDay. Awareness rally and distribution of educational kits to children of Safai Sainiks and ragpickers in Raghubir Nagar, the civic body wrote

on Twitter.

"City-SP Zone undertook cleanliness cum sanitation drives in the Zone & planted 110 trees on #WorldEnvironmentDay. Citizens were made aware of source segregation of waste & dangers of plastic use through Nukkad Natak," it said in another

tweet.