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Public Health / Sanitation

Tiruchy Corporation to rope in students in ensuring plastic-free, hygienic city

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The New Indian Express        21.11.2019 

Tiruchy Corporation to rope in students in ensuring plastic-free, hygienic city

Students have to get an acknowledgement (signature) from their parents every week confirming they were following the directions of the civic body.

Garbage cleaning work at Tiruchy.
Garbage cleaning work at Tiruchy.
Express News Service

TIRUCHY: As some residents continue to flout the corporation’s directions on garbage segregation, plastic ban and dengue prevention measures, the civic body is planning to resume awareness initiatives. This time, the corporation is proposing to ask students to ensure their parents observed plastic ban, garbage segregation and dengue prevention measures at home.

Officials said schools also have to highlight the importance of garbage segregation, plastic ban and dengue prevention in classroom blackboards to educate students. This apart, students have to get an acknowledgement (signature) from their parents every week confirming they were following the directions of the civic body.

“We are planning to request students to ensure their parents are following our directions. They have to ensure that they are not using banned plastic products in their home and give segregated waste to corporation workers. Similarly, students have to take dengue prevention measures at home,” an official said.

Through this initiative, the corporation would be reaching out to about three lakh students. Corporation Commissioner S Sivasubramaian said the civic body would cross-check the claims of parents. “Students can submit the acknowledgements to their schools. Our officials would ensure they are handing over segregated garbage and their premises are not mosquito breeding grounds. If we find they are following our directions, we would upload their details on the corporation website,” he said.

Officials said this plan is in the pipeline and would be launched soon. “We recently talked about an awareness programme conducted in a school and found students welcomed the idea. Currently, we are planning to upload the details of schools with the highest number of students participating in this initiative. We are also considering uploading the details of the students. A final decision on this initiative would be announced soon,” a source said. 

Sanitation workers have welcomed the idea. “Unsegregated waste is a major problem. Though officials had tried to impose fines on those handing over unsegregated waste, it failed to change the attitudes of residents,” a sanitation worker said.

 

Spider Robot extends helping hand to manual scavengers

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The New Indian Express       04.11.2019 

Spider Robot extends helping hand to manual scavengers

The internet is awash with posts about activists who occasionally get their hands dirty. Rarely do people mention about manual scavengers who get their bodies covered in filth.

Minister SP Velumani with the Bandicoot robot in Coimbatore
Minister SP Velumani with the Bandicoot robot in Coimbatore on Sunday. (Photo | Express)
By Express News Service

COIMBATORE: The internet is awash with posts about activists who occasionally get their hands dirty. Rarely do people mention about manual scavengers who get their bodies covered in filth.

On Sunday, Municipal Administration Minister S P Velumani officially initiated the use of Developed by Kerala-based startup Genrobotic Innovation, the spider-shaped robot will be used by sanitation workers to clean manholes in the city. It was sponsored by Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd and handed over to the Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation on October 1.

He said the robotic arm could travel through a manhole for up to 30 feet and collect the accumulated sludge.
 

Corporation identifies garbage vulnerability points

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The Hindu        11.12.2018  

Corporation identifies garbage vulnerability points

A conservancy worker drawing ‘kolam’ at a garbage-vulnerable point at Ramasamy Nagar in Ward 44 to prevent indiscriminate garbage dumping.M. PeriasamyM_Periasamy

A conservancy worker drawing ‘kolam’ at a garbage-vulnerable point at Ramasamy Nagar in Ward 44 to prevent indiscriminate garbage dumping.M. PeriasamyM_Periasamy  

There is every chance that the city’s residents may find neatly drawn colourful ‘kolam’ at a few places they are used to seeing garbage.

The new ‘kolam’ initiative is part of the civic body’s strategy to dissuade people from dumping garbage in the open.

According to health wing officials, the civic body had identified garbage vulnerability points across the five zones.

Those were points were in the people dumped garbage. By cleaning the garbage, tidying the place and drawing ‘kolam’, the Corporation wanted to break the people's habit of dumping garbage at those points.

Aside from drawing ‘kolam’, the Corporation conservancy workers would work the residents to persuade them to hand over garbage in segregated fashion to them so that the latter did not throw garbage on the streets. To begin with the Corporation had identified five such garbage-vulnerable points in each of the five zones, the officials said.

This was not a one-off effort where the workers would draw ‘kolam’ just once.

They would do it regularly to ensure that the place was clean and tidy and people did not dump waste. And, they would have to update the senior officials with pictures of the place. This way the Corporation hoped to bring about a behavioural change in the people, the officials added.

This was a very welcome step but the Corporation would not be able to increase the number of such places and monitor those because of the shortage of conservancy workers.

There were at least 50 such vulnerable points in each zone but the Corporation could not monitor each of the points.

More workers

The only way it could reduce such vulnerable points was by strengthening the door-to-door collection system – appointment of more workers to cover all localities, said officials who did not want to be named.

 
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