Urban News

The Hindu 06.11.2009

Coimbatore city to be made ‘No Smoking’ zone by January

K.V. Prasad

COIMBATORE: The Coimbatore Corporation is embarking on an ambitious proposal to make the entire city a “No Smoking” zone by January next year.

A combination of enforcement and education measures will be taken up to rid the city of the menace of smoking, Assistant City Health Officer R. Sumathi says.

The project was cleared on Thursday after discussions with Mayor R. Venkatachalam and Corporation Commissioner Anshul Mishra. Special enforcement squads of the Corporation will be formed to crack down on violation of anti-smoking rules. Enforcement of rules that forbid smoking in public places and the sale of tobacco products near educational institutions, sensitisation of the public to the dangers of tobacco use and also passive smoking are some of the measures that will be taken to meet the objective of the programme.

Mary Anne Charitable Trust has teamed up with the Corporation to carry out this programme. Already into a similar project in Chennai city, the trust will begin the one in Coimbatore with an opinion poll on smoking, says its Executive Director Cyril Alexander. An air quality monitoring will be done in the city and an intensive awareness drive on the hazards of smoking will be carried out. Students will be a part of this drive.

The trust will form four zone-level teams that will fan out to various parts of the city to seek the views of the public on the habit of smoking and on how it can be avoided.

“The aim is to get at least 2,500 samples of survey over the next five to six days,” says Mr. Alexander. The survey will cover public places, offices and various other establishments.

Officials and staff of the Health Department will be given orientation on the rules.

The Corporation and the Trust will do a stock taking in January of the measures taken this month and in December, with focus on both awareness and enforcement.

The Hindu 06.11.2009

Close monitoring of chlorine content in drinking water

Special Correspondent

— Photo: S. Siva Saravanan

Special drive: An official of the Coimbatore Corporation checking the chlorine level in drinking water in Coimbatore.

COIMBATORE: The Coimbatore Corporation has stepped up the monitoring of the chlorine content in drinking water in view of the North-East Monsoon.

Norms mandate 2 mg of chlorine in the tail-end areas of distribution, while the main service reservoirs (or overhead storage tanks) should have 5 mg.

“The residual chlorine in the tail-end areas must be 2 mg or .2 ppm (parts per million). We check the roadside taps or even those in houses to check whether the minimum chlorine quantity is available. This is done before the actual supply of water begins,” Assistant Engineer K. Karuppusamy explained during a chlorine monitoring exercise at the Ganapathy Main Service Reservoir recently.

Normally, the chlorine level was checked only at the main service reservoirs – one for the Siruvani scheme and the other for the Pilloor scheme. But, to prevent diseases such as diarrhoea because of water contamination during monsoon, extra efforts are taken to ensure there was no dilution of the chlorine content.

Apart from these reservoirs, the chlorine level was being monitored in more than 40 overhead tanks of both the schemes.

Both the Siruvani and Pilloor water schemes had a telemetry system that quickly pointed out any dip in the chlorine level.

Besides, 36 Sanitary Inspectors and five water supply engineers had been provided with chloroscope – an equipment to measure chlorination level.

In case of reduction in the level, the officials would inform the treatment plants of both the schemes. Even if the chlorine was mixed in water at the plants, it would take two to three hours for this water to reach the main service reservoirs. But, during this gap, chlorination would be done at the reservoirs, the official explained.