The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Residents’ call to end dumping of garbage

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Sunday, Dec 30, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Residents’ call to end dumping of garbage

Special Correspondent

Signature campaign organised

— PHOTO: A. Muralitharan

SIGNING FOR A CAUSE: Residents at the signature campaign held in Nanganallur on Saturday.

TAMBARAM: Hundreds of residents of Nanganallur took part in a signature campaign on Saturday, urging the Defence Ministry and the State government to take steps to stop dumping of garbage in Ganesapuram, coming under the Alandur Municipal limits.

For the past 80 years, the St. Thomas Mount Cum Pallavaram Cantonment Board has been dumping garbage generated in its jurisdiction at the 11.9 acre site in Ganesapuram that it owns. In the past three to four decades, several localities developed around the garbage yard and citizens’ groups have been urging both the Cantonment Board and the Department of Municipal Administration and Water Supply to stop dumping of garbage here.

To intensify their campaign, citizens’ groups of Nanganallur launched a signature campaign on Saturday. Representatives of the Ganesapuram Residents Welfare Association and the United Forum of Nanganallur Welfare Associations headed the campaign.

K.S. Raghavan, general secretary of the Forum, said the objective was to draw the attention of the State and Central governments to the problems faced by residents. And by evening, they had managed to obtain nearly 2,000 signatures of residents.

Officials of the Cantonment Board said garbage generated from the civic body with a population of nearly 45,000 people was dumped in Ganesapuram as they had no option.

The government had, in principle, agreed to include Cantonment Board in the modern, integrated compost yard coming up in Venkatamangalam near Vandalur. Once completed, garbage would not be taken to Ganesapuram.

The Board had plans to build a fully-equipped multi speciality hospital in Ganesapuram for both Defence personnel and residents of Alandur Municipality.

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