Date:13/04/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/13/stories/2008041359010700.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Holy duty towards ‘mother earth’

Staff Reporter

All stakeholders take an oath to make Tirupati the ‘Gateway of Cleanliness’

— Photo: K.V. Poornachandra Kumar

Clean and tidy: Ulrike Killguss of GTZ-ASEM and TMC Commissioner P. Mohan Reddy at the Vermicompost inaugural in Tirupati on Saturday.

TIRUPATI: A ‘Model Vermicompost System’ was inaugurated at the nearby Thukivakam village on Saturday. This has been dubbed as a major initiative in making the city pollution-free by processing the wet waste. The system was created with the primary task of collecting and processing the organic garbage and marketing the vermicompost for use in farms and orchards.

Taking part in the inaugural, Ulrike Killguss, a representative from GTZ-ASEM, called the task a holy duty to ‘Mother Earth’ and wanted the involvement of every citizen in the project. She expressed concern over the general indifference in public over phenomena like climate change and global warming. All the stakeholders took an oath to make Tirupati the ‘Gateway of Cleanliness’ and a model for other cities to emulate.

Commissioner of Municipal Corporation of Tirupati P. Mohan Reddy, said that the continuous training programme at the centre would provide a golden opportunity to every household in the temple city to prove to the world, their concern for the environment. PEN (Participatory Employment Network) India executed the Rs.6 lakh project, which was funded by a German agency GTZ-ASEM, while GEF SGP of UNDP provided an assistance of Rs.10.28 lakh for three years. The idea is to train the community in treating the waste with the help of earthworms, considered a natural converter .