Vaigai clean-up on all Saturdays

Corporation to place 160 dustbins and garbage collection points on riverbank

Students cleaning the Vaigai in the city on Tuesday. Photo: S. James

The Madurai Corporation will remove garbage on both sides of the Vaigai here on all Saturdays.

An exclusive clean-up operation was undertaken on Monday and Tuesday. The Corporation involved sanitary workers, students, voluntary organisations and the public to create awareness of the need to protect the Vaigai from pollution.

The Corporation’s health and engineering wings will work in tandem in the exercise, which aims at prevention of dumping garbage on the riverbank.

On Tuesday, a special campaign, including a rally and planting planting, was launched on Kalpalam Road in which Cooperation Minister ‘Sellur’ K. Raju, Collector L. Subramanian, Mayor V.V. Rajan Chellappa and Corporation Commissioner Kiran Gurrala participated.

It sought public cooperation to keep the river and its bed clean and ensure that the Vaigai sustained its due pride in the city’s history.

V. Yasodha Mani, City Health Officer, told

The Hindu that “The Corporation will focus on Sellur, A.V. Bridge, Simmakkal, Arapalayam, Obulapadithurai, Kalpalam, Pulianthope and Kuruvikaransalai area. Over 300 workers will be roped in for the clean-up operation.”

A. Mathuram, City Engineer, said that steps would be taken soon to place one huge dustbin for every 50 metre distance covering four-kilometre stretch from Thathaneri to Arapalayam to P.T.R. Bridge.

“Our plan is to have 160 dustbins and garbage collection points on both sides of the riverbank. When we have dustbins everywhere, people need not walk long to dump the waste. Proper disposal of garbage holds the key for keeping the Vaigai clean,” he said. According to the Mayor, 43 tonnes of garbage was removed on a single day on Monday through 16 tractors from 28 points along the river stretch. The quality of groundwater in the city also came in to focus even as the Corporation took up the Vaigai cleaning drive.

S. Rajmohan, environmental expert and Director of Enviro Care, cautioned that releasing of sewage into the river would affect the quality of groundwater in the areas around the Vaigai and it was extremely harmful. Open defecation on the riverbed is another complaint from the public. N. Manikandan, a resident of Arapalayam, felt that the public must be responsible to keep the river clean.