Armed with surgical masks and gloves, about 1,100 policemen and women across various ranks attached to Coimbatore City Police conducted a massive cleaning drive in the dry areas of Valankulam here on Sunday from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.
They collected 24 truck loads and 64 goods autorickshaw loads of plastic and other wastes weighing 25 tonnes. It was taken to the Corporation dump yard at Vellalore. A few medical teams and ambulances were in place to attend cases of emergency.
Inaugurating the drive, City Police Commissioner A.K. Viswanathan said that it was executed after two weeks of meticulous planning.
“Over the last two years, the city police have involved themselves in more than 100 community service activities. They include cleaning and painting of Government school buildings and nutritious noon meal centres, cleaning bus stands, planting saplings and conducting games in orphanages. About 200 policemen participated in a similar drive organised by the Coimbatore Corporation in Selva Chintamani Lake recently,” he said.
On Sunday, the participants were divided into six teams, each led by an Assistant Commissioner of Police. Areas to be cleaned by each team were marked with flags in different colours. “A stretch of 1.2 km was cleaned. Each team covered a stretch of 200 m, connecting the by-pass road on one side and the encroached huts on the other,” the Commissioner added.
“We have plans to complete the cleaning of the remaining 600 to 700 m. It will be carried out in a week or two depending upon rain and water stagnation in the tank,” Mr. Viswanathan said.
Some policemen set ablaze the garbage remains and dried water hyacinth. It left the tank covered with a thick cloud of smoke for sometime. “It was put out by the police. Instructions will be given to the personnel to refrain from burning such wastes during the drives in future,” he added.
