Eight-year-old V. Rohit, a resident of Villivakkam, never leaves home without his cricket bat.
Last Sunday, he did the unexpected — instead of the bat, he was carrying an eight-foot broomstick when he left the house. “Children are mostly influenced by their peers. We never asked him to join. His friends told him they were going to clean the streets and he joined in. . On Sunday, he was ready much before we got ready for the clean-up,” says K. Vasanth, Rohit’s father, watching his little son collect wisps of paper from the footpath. Rohit was not alone. Over 100 residents, young and old, of Baba Nagar, Villivakkam cleaned their streets as part of the Chennai Corporation’s Clean Chennai Campaign (CCC). The drive was inaugurated by J. Babu Raja, chief engineer (buildings division), Chennai Corporation. It was a joint exercise by the local civic officials of the ward 94 in Zone 8 of the Corporation and the residents’ welfare association.
“Cleaning our neighbourhood, especially the streets, is not new for the residents here. We undertake clean-up activities as regularly as tree-planting exercises. This initiative by the Corporation is a welcome step,” says T.K. Vijayakumar, president, Baba Nagar Residents Welfare Association.
The drive was led by assistant executive engineer, Zone 8 of Chennai Corporation, G. Radhakrishnan. Residents were divided into different age groups and allocated various activities including collection of paper wastes, dried leaves, broken branches of old trees, sweeping and placing garbage bins at street corners. Children were asked to pick small garbage like paper wastes and pet bottles, while youngsters swept the streets and collected the accumulated sands and dumped them in the garbage van. Senior citizens in the neighbourhood monitored the activities and civic officials guided the residents on source segregation of domestic wastes from the locality.
The 94th ward in Villivakkam comprises areas such as Baba Nagar, North Jaganathan Nagar, South Jaganathan Nagar, SITCO Nagar, North High Court Colony and Chennai – Tiruvallur High (CTH) Road. Every day, on an average, around 430 tons of garbage is generated from Zone 8 alone. Of these, around 30 tons of garbage is collected from ward 94. Baba Nagar has at least 500 housing quarters.
Started more than a month ago, the CCC is aimed at sensitising residents to effective garbage collection.
The Corporation also launched www.cleanchennai.com and Facebook and Twitter accounts. Residents can take a selfie of picking litter, and post it at #cleanchennai on Twitter or send it to selfie@cleanchennai.com.
