Deccan Chronicle 15.06.2010
Singapore team coming today
June 14: Good times are ahead for Chennaiites. The DMK government’s promise to turn the city into a Singara Chennai, by cleaning up its much-polluted Cooum river, is gathering pace, albeit, in a slow and steady manner.
Experts from the Singapore Cooperation Enterprise (SCE), with whom the government had entered into an agreement to facilitate cooperation and collaboration in restoration, beautification and management of the Cooum, will be visiting Chennai on Tuesday.
The Tamil Nadu government had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with SCE in March and the Singapore team had conducted a preliminary study on the Cooum. The collaboration between Chennai River Restoration Trust (CRRT) and SCE is to share Singapore’s experience in river cleaning and rehabilitation, particularly in river sub-basin restoration and management.
The Singapore team will be submitting its offer of technical assistance to CRRT on Wednesday to formulate the scope of works to develop holistic, integrated and sustainable solutions for sub-basin restoration and management.
The high-level committee, headed by deputy chief minister M.K. Stalin, reviewed the progress of Cooum restoration on Monday. Slum clearance board minister Suba Thangavelan, environment minister T.P.M. Mohideen Khan, mayor M. Subramanian and senior officials participated in the committee meet.
According to official sources, the deputy chief minister instructed the slum clearance board authorities to expedite shifting the 1,650 shops dealing in automobile spare parts and old vehicles in the Pudupet area, along the banks of the Cooum, to a 44-acre site in Appur, near Oragadam.
Mr Stalin asked the officials to prepare the layout and initiate the site work. In an effort to create awareness among Chennaiites to keep the riverbanks of the Cooum clean, Mr Stalin — who had visited Singapore to study its cleaning up its river — directed the authorities of the Chennai corporation to carry out mass cleaning of garbage along the water bodies of Chennai.
