Clean-up drive a big hit in neighbourhood

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While most residents complain about the city corporation’s inefficiency when they see overflowing garbage bins and debris on the streets, there are a few who step in and remove the garbage on their own.

Ms S. Lalitha, long-time resident of Nalla Thambi Street, Triplicane decided that residents should clear the garbage instead of depending on the corporation. “My neighbours, Kalies Raj and Indira helped me and we met the then Mayor M. Subramaniam and informed him that we would be able to keep our street clean,” said Ms Lalitha.

Mr Raj added, “We started this work two years ago. We visited more than 184 houses and asked them not to throw garbage in the same place as the bins had been removed. We hired two women workers and the work started at 6 am daily. These two women collected garbage from houses and also cleaned the street. We charged Rs30 from each household and paid these workers around Rs2,500.”

The place where the garbage bins were located is now a place for worship. “As Nalla Thambi Street is one of the ways to reach the Parthasarathy Temple, we placed Perumal pictures and started conducting bhajans in the evening. Slowly, residents of neighbouring streets too requested us to clean their streets. We named ourselves the NTS Welfare Organisation and employed more workers to clean these streets,” explained Ms Lalitha, secretary of the organisation.

Their work was such a hit that the Councillor asked the NTS Organisation to create awareness among residents of over 30 streets in Triplicane.

“We continued our work till six months back. And when Ramky took over the garbage clearing work, we started supervising and supporting them. Now we are in charge of clearing garbage from five streets including our Nalla Thambi Street. We won ‘Best Street Award’ from Mayor Saidai Duraisamy recently,” said Kalies, who can be contacted on 9790878377.