TIRUVANANTHAPURAM : The Railways, in association with NIMS Hospital, NSS volunteers of Kerala and MG universities, will organise a cleaning campaign ‘Swachh Vidyalaya’ to clean flood-affected schools on Tuesday. With flood waters receding from most of the places, the state government has taken up the massive task of cleaning houses and public places.In the one-day campaign, Railways’ 300 volunteers will clean 130 government-aided schools situated near the railway lines in three districts — Alappuzha, Kottayam and Pathanamthitta.
“We were allotted to clean 354 schools in seven districts but as it is not feasible to do in one day we agreed to initially carry the cleaning drive in three major flood-affected districts. The volunteers food and transportation will be our responsibility,” said Rajesh Chandran, Station Director, Thiruvananthapuram Central Station.The required cleaning materials for the campaign will be provided by city NIMS Hospital.
“In association with the Indian Railways, NIMS will be providing the required materials like disinfectants, swiper, mop, and broom sticks. All the materials are provided free of cost,” said Dr K A Saju, General Manager at NIMS Hospital.
Apart from cleaning, the Railways is also involved relief operations in flood-hit areas. Tonnes of relief materials have been transported different stations in the state from other parts of the country. The railway staff have undertaken prompt rescue work by restoring all affected railway tracks to help in the easy movement of people as well as relief teams.
Relief work
The employees are working round the clock for the collection and transportation of relief materials. Two special trains from Pune have been dispatched to Ernakulam with one train having 29 water wagons and other with seven water wagons. A special train consisting only of relief materials with 11 VPU’s reached Ernakulam on Monday. It consists of materials transported by National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED). “Large amount of drinking water has been transported to the flood-affected areas. Till now 63 VPU (parcel vans) with relief materials have reached the central station from various states,” said Bala Krishnan, Thiruvananthapuram station manager.
Of the 63 parcel van only 15 van materials has been unloaded, 46 vans are yet to be unloaded. The despatching of materials from a VPU may take about three to four hours. “There are only three VPU dealing station in the state - Thiruvananthapuram Central, Ernakulam and Alappuzha. Dispatching materials to other small stations will cause huge traffic leading to delay in train services,” said Rajesh.
Railways is arranging free transport of flood relief materials to many stations in Kerala. In a bid to assist the flood victims, the officers and staff of Trivandrum Division contributed Rs 65 lakh to Chief Minister of Kerala Relief Fund.