A group of volunteers of the Chennai Trekking Club, who are otherwise accustomed to working in air-conditioned cubicles, took on some hard physical labour on Sunday, all in a bid to clean the city.
Wearing gloves and carrying heavy metal rakes and big gunny bags, the volunteers, mostly working in IT and engineering companies, removed garbage dumped in the Nanmangalam Reserve Forest located near Medavakkam.
Volunteers of the club, in small groups, removed all kinds of wastes, predominantly plastic and broken liquor bottles, dumped inside and along the perimeter of the forest.
E. Elanchezhiyan, who works in an auto ancillary unit near Chennai, said the club had initially planned to clean the forest when they came for trekking last September. They were distressed to see plastic covers and broken glass pieces strewn in many places inside the forest and resolved to do something about it.
S. Sivakumar, on whose urging the volunteers of the club decided to take up the drive, said creating awareness among the people residing nearby could help conserve the forest better.
P. Lakshamanakumar, Forest Range Officer, Forestry Extension Centre, Nanmangalam, said a major portion of the 320-acre forest area was not fenced and that enabled residents to dump garbage in the reserve forest.
He also participated in the cleaning drive along with his forest officials.
In a similar venture, probably inspired by the Prime Minister’s Swachh Bharat initiative, two non-governmental organizations (NGOs) joined hands with the Chennai Corporation to launch the Clean Chennai campaign.
More than 50 volunteers of Serene Chennai and ‘The paint-box’ have been cleaning and painting the walls of the Quaid-E-Millath Government College for Women, Medavakkam, for the past three weeks.
The architect of Serene Chennai is Gouri Shankar, a TCS employee. He found his initiative when he discovered he could not recognise the college campus because of its filthy and creeper-ridden walls. “When we approached the college, they were sceptical about the entire thing initially. However, now, as we have finished 70 per cent of the work, with the help of students, the authorities are happy with the result”, he said. Clearly, awareness should begin with students, because the results are also more effective, Mr. Gouri reasons.
The group, which hopes to clean all public walls in Chennai, does the sensible thing by getting to work on Saturday mornings before the temperature soars.
