GCC to involve people to clean Chennai – Times of India

CHENNAI: Greater Chennai Corporation will work handin-hand with citizens of the city on solid waste management activities every fortnight, to create a garbage-free city. This is part of the ‘People’s Movement for Clean Cities’ initiative launched by the state government recently. Chief minister M K Stalin kicked off the drive on Sunday.
Under the initiative, the civic body will hold mass cleaning drives with the help of elected representatives, corporation staff, college and school students, NGOs and citizen volunteers. The corporation will create a data base of volunteers and update it with more members as the initiative progresses. The idea is to build a network of volunteer residents.

The drives features activi- ties such as wall poster removal, garbage collection, cleaning waterbodies and beautifying the city. The locations identified include public areas such as bus stands, parks, surroundings, religious places, railway stations, tourist spots, TNUHDB tenements, burial grounds, among others.
As per the standard operating procedures framed by the Municipal Administration and Water Supply Department, source segregation must be sensitised through elected representatives, volunteers and influencers. The civic body has been asked to conduct talks and events related to solid waste management in schools and colleges, and hold competitions on such as drawing, oration, writing slogan and creating digital posters on the cleanliness drive.
The corporation will award and facilitate institutions, residents, trade association and sanitary workers for exemplary efforts in solid waste management . “The main focus is to bring a culture in which citizens themselves give dry and wet garbage to battery operated vehicles which come to collect household garbage. Our ultimate aim is that the entire wet waste should get converted into manure or bio CNG and get utilised back by the society,” said city corporation commissioner Gagandeep Singh Bedi.