"Our cartoonists will draw, caricature and pull legs with witty comments on hoardings that would be put up at the main road crossings. The idea is to educate and make people aware of the intensity of urban problems," Manohar Gidwani, president of the Agra Cartoon Forum told Agratoday.in.

 Municipal Commissioner Vinay Shankar Pandey after opening the annual cartoon exhibition at the Nagar Nigam compound, said "the involvement of the artists and cartoonists in particular will create necessary level of sensitivity and awareness and would supplement our efforts to clean up the city and resolve some of the most ticklish problems that bring a bad name to the city of monuments."

 More than 100 cartoons were put up on display by half a dozen cartoonists. A large number of people turned up to see the exhibition.

 Eminent Homeopath of the city Dr. RS Pareek said "humor was essential for good health. It is unfortunate that newspapers were not publishing cartoons these days.

Who can forget the chuckle and good humor generated by the likes of RK Laxman, Abu Abraham or the prestigious Shankar's Weekly. A society that can laugh at its own follies and idiosyncrasies is indeed a strong and healthy society.

 We are now seeing a phase of declining level of tolerance and adjustments in society, and the newspaper cartoons seem to have become a victim of this trend."

Shishir Bhagat, president of the Wake Up Agra group said "when people fail to respond to direct and forceful messages to bring about attitudinal changes, it is sensible to involve the cartoonists who would at least bring a chuckle or titillate passersby. Agra folks badly lack a degree of civic consciousness. This new campaign may perhaps bring about a transformation."

 Dr. Chandra Kant Tripathi, registrar of the Central Hindi Institute said "a good cartoon is as good as an editorial. Journalism students should get involved in this very important campaign which could bring about desirable changes."

Politics is the staple diet of cartoonists, said Piyush Arora, of Arena Multi-Media group. "In a democracy all decisions are political in nature. Therefore there was nothing wrong in cartoonists training their guns on politicians."

This perhaps would be a very interesting experiment if the efforts of the cartoonists succeed in raising the civic consciousness level of the locals, said senior media person Nanda. Problems like proper disposal of litter, lack of community hygiene, defecating in the open, violation of traffic norms, damaging public property, all these issues need to be addressed and Agra being a tourist centre, people here have a responsibility to keep their city spruced up and clean, suggested Aadhar president Abhinay Prasad.