Chennai Corporation to kick-start mega cleaning, beautification drive on Madras Day

According to a Corporation official, the celebrations would be coordinated by the Smart City wing of the civic body. “As a part of the celebrations, our plan is to engage residents’ welfare associations, non-governmental organisations, artists and corporate groups. We will encourage residents in slums and other areas to join the mass cleaning and beautification drive,” the official said.

He added that initiatives like planting of saplings and creating artworks would commence on the day so that the works could continue after the celebrations too. The civic body has also requested the public to clean their surroundings on Madras Day and design artworks on walls involving their children.

The official said that until last year, the Madras Day was celebrated by certain organisations, who would organise seminars, heritage walks and other such events. “This year, we have decided to include everyone in the city and encourage them to take ownership of the beautification works. Once started, the beautification will gain pace and people will maintain the public spaces,” he added.

Apart from engaging the public, the civic body is trying to attract corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds from private companies to fund artists to create artworks and residents’ welfare associations to create greenery in their neighbourhood. The plan is to link artists and donors so that they could mutually help each other in giving a beautiful look to the city.

The official said that wide publicity would be given to create awareness about the Madras Day celebrations and proposed initiatives.

Meanwhile, the civic body has requested private firms to fund the ongoing beautification drive like creating artworks on city walls, pillars of the bridges and creating greenery at traffic islands.

“Already some private firms expressed interest to fund artworks under bridges. We will not receive funds directly from the corporate firmsm but will link artists with them,” the official added.

On Thursday, the Chennai Corporation conducted a meeting with officials of Chennai Metrorail Limited and highways department. During the meeting, the civic body requested them to participate in the city beautification drive by creating artworks on the Metrorail bridges and highways bridges.