Kerala State School Arts Festival | Sanitation workers leave no stone unturned

According to the Mayor 50 health inspectors, 100 sanitation workers and 100 Haritha Karma Sena volunteers are deployed across the 25 venues

If anyone has worked as hard as the young competitors of the State School Arts Festival in the past week, it would be the sanitation workers of the Thiruvananthapuram city Corporation. Fanning out across the 25 festival venues and their vicinity as well as the 25 accommodation centres, the sanitation workers have been hard at work to ensure litter-free, clean venues. On Friday evening, some of them were seen carrying out last minute clean up at the main venue at Central Stadium which will host the inaugural event on Saturday.

According to Mayor Arya Rajendran, the Corporation has deployed 50 health inspectors, 100 sanitation workers and 100 Haritha Karma Sena volunteers across the 25 venues. Arrangements have been put in place to collect biomedical waste including sanitary pads in a segregated manner from all the venues and accommodation centres. Several other sanitation workers have been deployed in shifts to keep the major roads clean.

The food pavilion at Putharikkandam Maidan will have 12 health inspectors and 100 sanitation workers in three shifts from 6 a.m. to midnight to ensure proper disposal of waste including the large number of plantain leaves used to serve food. The Corporation on Thursday set up 60 temporary toilets at Putharikkandam Maithanam. A mobile water treatment plant has also been made available at Putharikkandam to treat all the waste water.

The civic body’s fleet of water tankers will be used for drinking water distribution to venues and accommodation centres round-the-clock. Water tankers have been set up at all centres. Septage waste collection vehicles will also be used to collect waste from the venues periodically. As part of the strict green protocol being followed for the festival, visitors to the venues will be asked to pay ₹10 for taking water bottles inside the venues. This amount will be returned while going back to ensure that no littering happens at the venues. Fogging will be carried out at all accommodation centres on a daily basis to control mosquitoes.

The Corporation has set up a control room at the main venue at Central Stadium and at Putharikkandam Maidan to address any issue related to the festival.