Experts prepare strategy for sustainable Chennai

Chennai:

Experts from different walks of life on Tuesday discussed various strategies to make Chennai beautiful.

Diplomat, green activists, businessmen, former bureaucrats, academicians devised various methods to improve the infrastructure and sustainable living in the city.

While most of them highlighted shrinking open space, dwindling wetland and water bodies, others highlighted the need to build more desalination plants besides preservation of heritage buildings and proper planning.

Nanditha Krishna, the director of C P Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation, said the city lacks planning and through sustainable lifestyle one can attain sustainable development.

She highlighted the need for mini sewage treatment plant all over the city and clean temple tanks so that it will help improve the ground water table. “The TDS of the ground water was 200 and now it has risen to above 700. The salt water intrusion in ground water table is also too high, she added.

She also suggested the need of setting up of factories which can convert waste to energy besides the need of CNG buses like that in New Delhi. “This will cut down pollution in the city,” she said.

Nanditha also highlighted the need to ban food stalls to keep the beaches clean.

Founder of ExNoRa International Chennai M B Nirmal stressed on the need to transform waste to wealth. Citing many examples of how ExNoRa made a difference in restoring 40 water bodies, he said solutions are there in the problem.

Honorary Consul of France in Chennai Kausalya Devi said that lack of sustainable infrastructure is one of the biggest challenges before the city. She also said that people have distanced themselves from the civic issues. “Most of us still don’t know which corporation ward they belong to,” she added.

R Ramamurthy, convenor of corporate social responsibility panel, FICCI, said there is a immediate need to renovate 38 parks in Chennai besides beautification of Elliots and Marina beach. Highlighting the need for more desalination plants, he also stressed the need to promote Chennai as cultural capital of Asia.