He personally swept garbage into a bin with a spade and rake at Jolarpet, while DMK MLA S Devaraji joined him in the drive. The Collector’s move also revealed that most rural local bodies abutting urban centres did not collect and hand over garbage to segregating yards for composting but preferred to dump them on roadsides and lakebeds. 

Kuswaha also inspected the segregation centre at the 8.60-acre garbage dump yard in Tirupattur town composting yard. On Thursday, his order resulted in an unused toilet complex built on the Palar bed at Jaffrapet village under Alangayam panchayat union being bulldozed and garbage removed from the river and taken to the nearest segregation centre. 

Talking to DT Next, he said, “the aim is to make Tirupattur town a better and cleaner place. To achieve this goal, I have ordered for a month from now that is till August 20 garbage will be collected from all houses and moved to segregation centres. From August 20 to September 20, awareness will be created through various media of how to segregate garbage at home and this will be followed up for another month to see how the public respond to the drive.” 

“Even after this, if they fail to adhere to the new normal, then we will think of imposing fines to make them do the segregation at home,” he said and added that it was his personal wish to see a cleaner and garbage-free street in the town. 

“As the town has enough cleanliness workers (Thooimai Paniyalargal) I aim to utilise their services to achieve the collective goal,” he noted.