‘Swachhta’ drive at Coimbatore railway station

Nearly 150 college students cleaned the Coimbatore railway station under the ‘Swachhta Hi Sewa’ programme recently.

The event was jointly organised by the Salem Division of Southern Railway and the Aram Foundation Charitable Trust. The cleanliness drive will continue till October 2.

Station Director P. Sathesh Saravanan said that the students cleaned the railway yard.

Mr. Saravanan said that the primary focus this year was campaign against single-use plastics. “We distributed around 400 cloth bags to passengers who had plastic bags in two days,” said. The station currently has 80 pairs (biodegradable and non-biodegradable) of dustbins and has 46 conservancy workers participating in additional works such as assisting in voluntary cleaning apart from their regular work, he said.

The station also had handed out feedback forms to the passengers. “The response for the station has mostly been positive but the passengers feel that the cleanliness inside the trains could be improved,” Mr. Saravanan said.

Founder and Managing Trustee of the Aram Foundation Charitable Trust Latha Sundaram, who organised the students from the colleges, said that this wsa the 5th year that the foundation had been collaborating with the Salem Division. The students also organised cultural events, she said.

“Most of the garbage we collected were single-use plastics and sanitary napkins,” Ms. Sundaram said.

Cleanliness drive at Salem railway junction

A cleanliness drive was also conducted at Salem railway junction on Sunday.

Senior Divisional Commercial Manager E. Harikrishnan inaugurated the event.