The Hindu 10.06.2013
Guntur vying with itself for clean city image
‘Oorante Guntur’ launched on a colourful note
wAY TO GO:Minister for Agriculture Kanna Lakshminarayana leading the
procession held ahead of the launch of ‘Oorante Guntur’, sanitation
programme on Sunday. District Collector S. Suresh Kumar and S.P, Guntur
Urban, Ake Ravikrishna are seen. —Photo: T. Vijaya Kumar
Guntur Municipal Corporation on Sunday took a big step
to become a clean city by launching a comprehensive sanitation
programme, ‘Oorante Guntur.’
The catchy slogan is set
to inspire the civic staff, sanitation personnel and the residents to
come together and make the city free of garbage as they embark on an
ambitious campaign for the next two months.
The campaign is akin to a championship where the sanitary personnel vie with each other to outperform and bag points.
Minister
for Agriculture Kanna Lakshminarayana read out a pledge and formally
inaugurated the programme at Patibandla Seetharamaiah High School. Mr.
Lakshminarayana said that the city has always faced problems related to
drinking water and sanitation. The drinking water issue has been solved
with the grounding World Bank funded Comprehensive Water Project
designed to ensure continuous water supply for 10 hours for the next 40
years.
Pointing out that the city was yet to address
sanitation problem and complimented the officials to coming up with a
sanitation programme. He also directed the officials to send proposals
for recruitment of more number of sanitary workers.
District
Collector and Special Officer of GMC, S. Suresh Kumar urged the civic
personnel to take up the programme as a challenge and change the face of
the city. The GMC has just over 1,800 personnel to meet the needs of a
population of 10 lakh and called for effective solid waste management
practices to get rid of sanitation problems.
‘Reduce,
recycle and reuse. These should be followed by residents while
disposing the waste, which is anything out of place. We need to focus on
generating wealth from waste and not merely collecting and disposing of
waste,’ Mr. Suresh Kumar said.
Logo unveiled
The Minister later unveiled the logo of the campaign designed by Doordarshan correspondent Ravishankar.
Earlier,
hundreds of sanitary personnel took part in a colourful procession
launched from four centres simultaneously. Braving the searing heat,
they marched on, singing and dancing to the venue.
For
the next one month or so, the workers would be involved in an intense
campaign, aimed at complete door to door collection, waste segregation,
disposal and recycling.
Guntur MLA (East), Sk. Mastan
Vali, MLC K.S Lakshman Rao, Joint Collector D. Muralidhar Reddy,
Superintendent of Police, Ake Ravikrishna, Municipal Commissioner K.
Venkateswarlu, Additional Commissioner P. Srinivasulu, Municipal Health
Officers Nayak and Sridhar were present.
Charge memos issued
Municipal
Commissioner K. Venkateswarlu on Sunday suspended four community
organisers and issued charge memos to the two Municipal Health Officers
for failing to mobilise crowds at the curtain raiser of the ‘Oorante
Guntur’ programme. The Commissioner also suspended contractor K.
Malleswara Rao for failing up to pay salaries to contract sanitary
staff.
Drinking water issue has been solved with World Bank funded water project, says Minister
Reduce, recycle and reuse’ should be followed by residents while disposing of waste, says Collector
