COIMBATORE : In its effort to realise the goal of transforming Coimbatore into a ‘Zero Garbage City’, the civic body has deployed sanitary workers at hotspots where public dump waste on roadsides. They will be at the site from morning to afternoon on a rotational basis every day and stop people who bring waste from home and discard it on the wayside.
This initiative of Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation (CCMC), which is part of the ‘Namma City Number One City’ project, aims to reduce such dumping spots in many wards.
Sanitary workers have also been deployed at four hotspots in each ward and they are monitoring under the supervision of supervisors.
A sanitary worker, B Selvi (name changed) in ward 38 at Vadavalli, told TNIE, “People dump wastes at the spot located near Sundara Vinayakar Temple at Vadavalli Thondamuthur road while they travel on this route. People ignore the banner saying ‘Don’t dump waste here.”
“Sanitary workers are deployed at garbage hotspots at Kalveerampalayam, MGR Nagar, Vadavalli-Thondamuthur road, etc. I have been assigned to a spot on the Vadavalli-Thondamuthur road. I will be there from 8 am to 1 pm. For the past week I have been instructing people who bring waste from their homes not to discard it. “Further, I will instruct that waste should be handed over to the sanitary workers who will come to houses to collect waste in vehicles. Dumping of wastes has reduced gradually here. As this place has become clean, now people do not want to dump waste anymore,” she said.
The efforts of the civic body to keep a check on wanton dumping of waste are paying off, at last.
The previously problematic areas such as Devar Hall in ward 63 and 50 feet road in ward 64 have now been completely transformed into waste-free zones due to our persistent endeavors, said T Jeganathan, a Sanitary Inspector at Ramanathapuram area comprising four wards in the city.
“We have converted these locations into autorickshaw stands, vendor shops, and two-wheeler parking lots to dissuade people from dumping waste again. These measures will stop people from dumping waste here,” he said.
CCMC official sources said officers found around 60 to 70 dumping spots in all wards of the city. After this initiative, around 20 to 25 hotspots were reduced in each ward. We hope that the remaining hotspots will be changed in the next three weeks. The quantity of mixed wastes being sent to the municipal garbage dump at Vellalore has gone down from 400 tons to 200 tons.
CCMC Commissioner M Sivaguru Prabakaran said that around 50% of hotspots were reduced following this initiative by which wastes are removed properly from the public places.
Under this project, 600 vehicles fixed with GPS machines were deployed to collect waste last month. Forty officers at the Integrated Command Control Center (ICCC) at RS Puram are monitoring if workers are collecting wastes from door to door, shops, etc. We will fix CCTV cameras at the zero hotspots to monitor people continuously from the ICCC, sources added. Welcoming this move, city-based environmentalists KS Mohan told TNIE that this system will make Coimbatore a clean city.
Coimbatore city stood at the 182 place in the Swachh Surveskshan 2023 rankings released by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in January.