People of Chennai should come forward, own up and participate in a bid to create a better city, J. Radhakrishnan, Commissioner of Greater Chennai Corporation said here on Tuesday.
While speaking at the World Cities Day Connect 2023 ‘Building Sustainable and Inclusive Cities for All’ organised by the Sustainable Development Council (SDC) along with UN-Habitat, he said, compared to 2001 when 2,550 tonnes of garbage was generated in the city, today, it has ballooned to 6,150 tonnes per day. “But more importantly, if a person was generating 500 grams of garbage then, it has now risen to 700 grams per person. This is where sustainability becomes important. When we talk of zero waste, we have to work together,” he said.
There are challenges in garbage collection too, he said. “While we have managed to extend door-to-door collection to 90%, only 67% of garbage gets segregated. Whom are we harming? We have good resident welfare associations and socially and civic conscious people. But all of us should participate in this exercise and own the city,” he noted.
An online journal ‘Youth leads sustainability’ was also launched at the event. K. Lakshminarayanan, Minister for Public Works, Government of Puducherry, said, sustainability goals become significant at this point in time because there has been a realisation that in whichever part of the world, an issue or crisis occurs, it could affect us too.
V. Nandakumar, Commissioner of Income Tax, Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, and Beena Philip, Mayor of Kozhikode Municipal Corporation spoke during the occasion.
