For two days, students, voluntary organisations, and private agencies in Kozhikode joined hands with the district administration and the municipal corporation to clean up unused toilets, to get walls cleaned and give them a fresh coat of paint, besides doing art work on them. All based on nothing more than good will and a sense of service.
It was on Friday that District Collector U.V. Jose sent out a call through the Collector Kozhikode Facebook post for his followers to come forward to ensure cleanliness in the city. “Let us set aside differences for once and work united for this goal,” he had said, pointing out that the deplorable condition of public toilets in the city, unavailability of contractors to manage them as well as the way people use public toilets were responsible for the situation.
On Saturday morning, students under the NSS technical cell started work. Students of polytechnics took the initiative to fix faulty pipelines and clean public toilets at Palayam, while the Uralungal Labour Contract Cooperative Society took up the renovation of the toilet complex at the mofussil bus stand.
On Sunday, students of various colleges in the city under the ‘Campuses of Kozhikode’ project cleaned public spaces that had become dumping grounds and walls of flyovers covered with posters. Later, these spaces were given a fresh coat of paint, so that the public would not want to spoil there anymore.
“The response from the student body in the city was overwhelming. At least 500 students participated in the programme over the two days,” the Collector said.
The programme was actively supported by the municipal corporation that provided the necessary equipment. “Our aim is to form a network of toilets across the district. This is only the first step,” Mr. Jose said, adding that toilets at restaurants and petrol pumps would also be included in the network after grading them. To fill up gaps, new toilet complexes are also being considered.
“There is a scarcity of responsible agencies to maintain toilets. There is also a need to fix a benchmark for cleanliness,” the Collector observed.
Year of Sanitation
Incidentally, the district administration is observing 2018 as the Year of Sanitation and aims to cover the basic sanitary indicators in the district by the end of the year.
