Coimbatore Corporation’s waste management project involving school students, Uram Seiya Virumbu , has seen good response but is short of what it had hoped to achieve.
In a competition mode, the Corporation had engaged students in December asking them to take dry, recyclable waste to schools and prepare compost at homes and take selfies of the compost to create awareness on waste segregation among students and make it a mass movement.
The Corporation had announced various prizes – best student, best class and best school - to make encourage more participation. At the start of the project in the first week of December 2018, Corporation sources involved in the project said the target was to reach at least 75,000 students.
At the end of the project period – December 31 – there are conflicting reports available. One organisation involved with the project said it had reached out to 93,000 students from 210 schools. Another organisation said the number of students covered 32,000 from 102 schools. The first organisation, which did not want to be identified, said of the 210 schools, 30 responded very well and from those schools, the Corporation had managed to collect nearly 12,000 kg waste.
The second organisation, on condition of anonymity, said of the 32,000 students who were told about waste generation, segregation and management, only 13,000 responded by returning the acknowledgement cards that had their parents’ signature expressing willingness to participate in the programme.
As for the second part of the Uram Seiya Virumbu – selfies with compost prepared – there are again conflicting reports in that the first organisation said around 25,300 students responded and it had received over 700 selfies. The second said 600 students had posted selfies with the compost they were preparing or had prepared.
The Corporation had engaged both the organisations to reach out to students of its, government-run and private schools to participate in the programme.
The organisations said they could have roped in more students had the Corporation given them more time. December was half-yearly exam season followed by holidays and the two curtailed the effective participation of students in the project from a month to 10 – 15 days.
Corporation officials said they were aware of the limitations but had organised Uram Seiya Virumbu to create awareness among students. The response was encouraging and that they would soon announce the prizes.
