OMR Greens: Panchayat chief chips in

Padur panchayat chief with OMR Greens
 Padur panchayat president Mr Chinnakutty offered to join in a  OMR Greens  initiative to mobilise volunteers among residents to clear a trash heap in front of Mantri Synergy.. "I can also work  to clear the trash ," he told OMR Greens founder member R Vasudevan when he heard Vasu, Gopalan and I (all senior citizens) planned to put on gloves and mouth-mask and get down to cleaning the trash heap that has accumulated on the roadside in front of our residential complex. Pleased with  panchayat chief's response, Gopalan offered to  buy him a OMR Greens designer T-shirt.

 

The three of us had gone to meet the panchayat chief to seek Panchayat's help  in moving the garbage we collect to the landfill  at Padur. OMR Greens, a community service initiative by Mantri Synergy residents, plans, what they call, a trash-buster operation on Saturday, Sept.29.  The idea came from the Ugly Indian, a Bangalore-based volunteers group,  comprising mostly software professionals from Oracle, IBM and other companies. A platoon of these professionals move in to scoop up garbage  from city streets. They call their trash-cleaning work  'spotfixing'. We call it 'trash-busting'.

On OMR  at Padur we have littered the pavement over so long, allowing a trash heap to grow right under our nose. We blame the panchayat for the sorry state of affairs. The panchayat chief , on his part, blames  residents of  gated communities for using the pavement outside their complex  as dumping ground .Mr Chinnakutty expressed helplessness in catching the culprits because the trash  was usually brought to be dumped late into  the night to escape detention. According to the panchayat chief, trash dumped on streets was too much to handle by a staff of 12 street cleaners, who work part-time. You can't get full-time cleaning staff on the pay panchayat offers - Rs.2,600 a month.