The Hindu 10.06.2013
Guntur vying with itself for clean city image
‘Oorante Guntur’ launched on a colourful note
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
