The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Eco City plan for Tirupati takes off

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Sunday, Jan 11, 2009
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Eco City plan for Tirupati takes off

Staff Reporter

‘SAKRMA’ involves partnership participation in a big way

-Photo: K. V. Poornachandra Kumar

A beginning: Regina Dubey, of GTZ-ASEM and P.S.Sodhi of UNDP giving away coconut saplings at ‘SAKRMA’ in Tirupati on Saturday.

TIRUPATI: ‘SAKRMA’, a comprehensive plan to keep the city clean by involving all the stakeholders, was formally launched here on Saturday.

The programme is part of the ‘Eco City’ project implemented by Municipal Corporation of Tirupati, in association with German Technical Agency (GTZ-ASEM), United Nations Development Programme and a voluntary organisation, PEN India. The scheme envisages creation of public awareness on community-led solid waste management in all the city’s seven sanitary divisions by laying emphasis on source separation of garbage at household levels.

Another angle to the project is promotion of partnership with a range of stakeholders including self-help groups (SHGs), Community-based organisations (CBOs), NGOs, government agencies, besides the employees of TTD, TUDA and the civic body.

Regina Dubey, senior advisor of GTZ-ASEM, asserted that the Eco-city project had more than proved that a city could be kept clean in spite of so many adverse factors like a deluge of floating population and expressed confidence that SAKRMA would go a long way in bringing a seachange. P.S. Sodhi, national coordinator of New Delhi-based UNDP’s GEF SGP, released the action plan for Tirupati and emphasised the need to promote community-based recycling systems and small enterprises. He sought public cooperation in use of cloth bags and public transport to reduce pollution.

TTD Executive Officer K.V. Ramanachary, representing the main stakeholder, expressed his readiness to embrace the project. TUDA Chairman Ch. Bhaskar Reddy, Deputy Commissioner of MCT, Ramasundar Reddy and others participated.

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