Segregate wet & dry waste, win a gift for Deepavali: Mettupalayam Municipality Commissioner R Amudha

COIMBATORE: The Mettupalayam Municipality has announced Deepavali prize for people who hand over segregated waste to sanitary workers on a regular basis. The initiative has received a good response from people. Solid waste management is one of the major works for local bodies.

As most people refuse to hand over segregated garbage, sanitary workers are forced to segregate the waste into bio-degradable, non-biodegradable and wet & dry waste. Despite issuing appeals multiple times, officials couldn’t bring in change among the people. Against this backdrop, the Mettupalayam Municipality in a bid to curb the mixed waste and dumping of wastes in the open launched an initiative under the Swacch Bharath Mission 2.



0. The municipality officials identified Kattoor Railway Gate and Annaji Rao Road as hotspots for open dumping. Based on instructions from the municipality commissioner, officials pasted a poster at the spots announcing that the municipality will be providing a Deepavali prize to people who hand over segregated waste to sanitary workers on a regular basis.

Speaking to TNIE, Mettupalayam Municipality Commissioner R Amudha said, “We decided to encourage people with incentives for their cooperation. This move has been well received by the people. The dumping of waste in the open has reduced drastically after the poster was pasted.

We are planning to expand the initiative to other areas and our officials have started the works for identifying similar hot spots across the municipality. As far as the Deepavali gifts are concerned, we are planning on providing people with small utensils, plastic items and other things that might be useful for them.” Sources said sanitary workers along with the supervisors will note down details of people who hand them segregated waste regularly during door to door selection and conduct a lucky draw to choose the winners.

The total number of winners will be decided after it is expanded across the municipality. The municipality plans to gift the day before diwali..