Piles of garbage lie unattended on the streets of Kurudampalayam village in Coimbatore ditrict. The irony is that not long ago, Kurudampalayam prided itself in being one of the cleanest villages in India.
For being a model village, the Centre awarded Kurudampalayam the ‘Panchayat Sashasktikaran Puraskar Award’ in 2014 and the ‘Cleanest Village Campaign’ by the Tamil Nadu government in 2016.
Speaking to The News Minute, D Raja, former panchayat president explains that the village has been in a terrible state for the last two months, with garbage strewn everywhere. “There was garbage lying on the road sides for days. We had complained to the district administration several times about the situation,” he says.
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About two weeks ago, the Block Development Officer (BDO) was assigned the task of cleaning the village. The situation since then, has marginally improved, observes Raja.
“The cleaning of garbage bins and waste management has been taking place for the last 15 days. After the BDO was assigned the job, the cleaning is now happening once in two to three days. But it’s still not like how it was last year.”
Until recently, it was the panchayat that was responsible for the village’s cleanliness and upkeep. Raja states that postponement of the local body elections has led to the situation of unattended garbage.
“When we had a panchayat committee and about 15 councillors, there used to be proper cleaning of the village and waste was collected on a daily basis. Now, things are changing. The BDO has to take care of nine villages in the district,” he said.