After a grand launch on November 14, the civic body is only now getting off to a slow start to implement the Uram Seiya Virumbu (will to prepare compost) project.

The project involves students of all schools in the city to encourage them to segregate waste in to wet-degradable and dry-recyclable.

The students will have to prepare compost with the wet waste at their houses and take the dry waste to schools.

The Corporation at the end of the 45-day project period, will give prizes to best student and best class in each of the participating schools and select a best school as well.

Though the Corporation launched it in mid-November, it is only in the next two days that volunteers will be meeting the school students to explain to them the project and handover registration cards, say sources.

It is because the volunteers, mostly college students, were not available on account of holidays.

A few volunteers went to schools on Monday and more will reaching out on Tuesday. Thereafter, by Wednesday, the students will start taking dry waste to schools.

This has effectively reduced competition period from 45 days (from November 15 to December end) to around 25 days and in reality, the project period will be only for 20 days, the sources say and point to the registration cards that have entry for only 20 days.

The students will have to take the registration cards, get their parents signature to confirm their participation in Uram Seiya Virumbu and handover the signed cards to class teachers, who, everyday will enter the quantity of waste taken to the school against the students name.

Thus far, the Corporation has reached out to 8,317 students. It’s target is to reach 50,000 – 75,000 students.

Notwithstanding the delay in implementing the project, the students’ response has been quite encouraging, the sources also say. In schools wherever the volunteers had reached out to students, the students have been taking dry waste in good quantity to schools and the bags that Corporation has given for storing the dry waste are already overflowing.

But this encouraging response has come with a problem in that the Uram Seiya Virumbu project does not have way to assess how much waste each student brings or which class has done well.

The sources say while weighing the waste students take to school and classes collect is the ideal option, in the absence of weighing scales it is not possible.

Volunteers coordinating the project for the Corporation say providing so many weighing scales to schools is not possible and therefore the Corporation has left it to class teachers and school heads to assess the waste collected by students and classes.

The Corporation will weigh waste only school-wise to decide the best school in city. But within each schools, it is the concern of the school head.