Making city clean & green

CHENNAI: Taking up the responsibility of making Chennai clean and green, members of a civil self-help group have come together to work on an action plan and urge others to do the same.The group of individuals from different walks of life — students, IT professionals, businessmen and retired teachers — all share a common goal. “We would like to see our city improved and maintained by the residents themselves,” says Balasubramaniam, head of Nallore Vattam, which has started the initiative.Volunteers and members implement a 6+6 plan: six action plans and six pledges. The plans include integrating people’s power and student power, creating street welfare groups and department welfare groups to keep a check on civic departments, working on  outreach of government programmes to help the public and insisting on personal honesty.The basic premise of this plan is that people should not hand over the entire burden of maintaining our country to politicians or the government, says Balasubramaniam. “Identifying people with the drive to create social awareness will go a long way in spreading the word,” he says.A similar plan has been in action for the last few years in Ganga Nagar and some other streets in the Kodambakkam area. Following the success and results seen, the group says they have been in contact with Chennai Corporation Mayor Saidai S Duraisamy to expand the project to various other areas. “We plan to create 10 model zones and then expand our reach,” said one of the members.A “responsibility-taking” ceremony is to be held on Sunday at 6.30pm at the Sri Ramakrishna Mission Matric School, which will be presided over by the Mayor. More details can be obtained by contacting 9094758808.