Keeping in mind the need to turn the ancient town into a Smart city, the Corporation of Madurai has set in motion very many initiatives towards achieving the goal.
By retaining the heritage identity, a facelift is being given to the areas in and around the famous Meenakshi Temple by roping in like minded service organisations and other agencies.
For its part, the Corporation has been carrying out cleaning activities in government office buildings since the last two months. As part of the smart city initiative, the best conservancy workers were being recognised every fortnight, ward and zone wise, and felicitated for their services.
In this line, the Corporation had also recently started a drive to educate the public not to urinate in the open and also deface the walls.
Recently, a group of volunteers painted the walls and disseminated the message stressing the need to stop littering in the locality.
In continuation, the officials roped in students from schools and colleges to join the Smart city programmes.
Commissioner Sandeep Nanduri recently interacted with the students who won in painting competitions held in schools.
As many as 50 schools, which had conducted the competitions, selected the top three winners.
From schools, the students were given space on public walls around Race Course Road to draw and exhibit their skills, Mr. Nanduri said and added that 51 spots have been identified for the students to paint. Soon, the walls in the city would have different themes with a single objective of a clean and green city.
‘Thrilled’
The students, who were assigned the task of painting at Race Course, told reporters that they were simply thrilled to be part of the big campaign and waiting to see a new Madurai.
The Soroptomist International (Madurai chapter) is associated with the painting events, a Corporation official said.
