Urban News

The Hindu 18.07.2009

Corporation begins work on removing silt from bed of Tirumanimutharu

Staff Reporter

Photo: P. Goutham

Massive task: Salem Corporation workers began removing silt from the Tirumanimutharu on Friday. —

SALEM: The removal of silt in a portion of Tirumanimutharu, a major river turned sewer, began here on Friday.

The Salem Corporation has taken up the work as the river had accumulated silt due to dumping of solid waste by commercial establishments.

The Corporation has deployed a team of workers and earthmovers to remove the silt on a part of the river course between Ananda Bridge and Apsara Theatre.

Meanwhile, citizens urged the civic body to initiate concrete measures to prevent the commercial establishments from dumping solid waste into the channel.

Though the civic body had issued warnings earlier, the establishments continued to dump garbage in the channel.

People wanted the civic body to ensure regular cleaning of the channel.

They also appealed to the Corporation to expedite the implementation of the second phase of the Tirumanimutharu river project.

The second phase is aimed at lining the bed and bunds to a length of 590 metres in the upstream area of the river starting from Anaimedu and 2,210 metres in the downstream area, starting from Apsara Theatre.

The Hindu 17.07.2009

Taking a pledge to keep Coimbatore city clean

Special Correspondent

COIMBATORE: Residents, members of non-Governmental organisations and elected representatives of the Coimbatore Corporation took a pledge at Ward 3 here recently to take the civic body’s solid waste management programme forward, so that the city remained clean.

The pledge was part of a series of events being held by the Corporation to sensitise the public to the need for segregation of waste at source. Administered by Mayor R. Venkatachalam, the pledge contained guidelines for the residents on how to go about segregating waste generated kitchen and garden waste and other types of garbage generated every day.

Deputy Mayor N. Karthik, North Zone Chairman C. Padmanabhan, Health Committee Chairman P. Nachimuthu, Assistant City Health Officer R. Sumathi and Priscilla of Green Mother Trust were also took the pledge.

Officials in the civic body pointed out that the Corporation was already distributing/pasting stickers containing these guidelines.

Model wards

The public at Ward 3, one of the nine model wards chosen for a pilot project, were told that segregation at source was an effective method to reduce the burden on the Corporation in waste management. If people kept biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste in separate bins at home and handed these over to the conservancy workers, the Corporation could handle tougher tasks such as turning waste into manure and disposal through landfills.