The 2000-year-old Meenakshi Sundareswarar twin temple is dedicated to Meenakshi, an incarnation of Parvati, and her consort Sundareswar, an incarnation of Lord Shiva, spread over an area of 65,000 sq.m.
The Sri Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple in Madurai has won the award for the cleanest iconic place among 10 contenders selected under the Swachh Bharat Mission. The temple beat out such as the Taj Mahal in Agra, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, and the Tirupati temple after concerted efforts to keep the historic temple and its surroundings clean.
Madurai district collector K Veera Raghava Rao and corporation commissioner Aneesh Sekhar collected the award at a function organised by the ministry of drinking water and sanitation, the convening ministry for the Swachh Bharat Mission, in New Delhi on Monday.
The 2000-year-old Meenakshi Sundareswarar twin temple is dedicated to Meenakshi, an incarnation of Parvati, and her consort Sundareswar, an incarnation of Lord Shiva, spread over an area of 65,000 sq.m.
The Madurai district administration and the city corporation focused on keeping the temple clean after the temple made the list of 10 out of the 100 iconic places selected last year, and first banned plastic in a 1-km radius around the temple from January 1 this year.
The Madurai Corporation along with temple administration undertook several initiatives like building modern e-toilets, segregation of waste, creating a plastic-free zone, making purified water available, and appointing 24/7 cleaning staff and inspectors, said Sekhar.
To keep the temple premises clean all through the day, the administration has hired 60 contract workers while 300 volunteers join a cleaning drive once in a month. The corporation has placed coloured garbage bins for segregating waste in the streets leading to the temple. It has also built 25 e-toilets and 15 water ATMs for tourists’ use.
Keeping it clean
To keep the temple premises clean all
through the day, the administration has hired 60 contract workers while 300 volunteers join a cleaning drive once in a month. The twin temple covers an area of 65,000 sq.m.
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