The Hindu                05.07.2013

Clean City Championship off to a flying start

Its 6 a.m. and the residential colony at Pattabhipuram is yet to wake up. Enter the sanitary staff wearing colourful caps, gloves wheeling their push carts with plastic bins. A shrill whistle and a pair of eyes peer through the window. The door opens and the worker picks up the bin and dumps into the huge plastic bin. The convoy of push carts moves on and the competition is off to a start.

These are the scenes witnessed on day 1 of the Clean City Championship which began here on Thursday. The programme kicked off in the election ward no 31 with a battery of municipal personnel headed by Additional Commissioner P. Srinivasulu beginning the contest.

After a brief pep talk by CCC resource person Suresh Bhandari, the workers set off. The initial response was a bit lukewarm. But soon the residents began to respond, some of them even joining the programme. The collection was moderate but it was the just the beginning. On Day 1, about 7 quintals of waste was generated and sent to the yard.

Municipal Health Officer Sridhar said that they had planned to cover 2,354 houses in 31 election ward and 1,970 houses in 10th election ward.

He hoped that the response would improve in the coming days.

Meanwhile, support continued to pour in for the programme. RVR & JC College of Engineering presented a cheque of Rs.3 lakh to Mr. Srinivasulu and urged him to use the money for the welfare of sanitary workers.

Deputy Commissioner Abdul Latif, MHO-Guntur 1 Naik and personnel from engineering and Town planning were present.