Around 2,000 volunteers take part

Controversies and complaints have no place at this hour when the State is faced with an unparallelled disaster, Minister for Excise and Labour T.P. Ramakrishnan has said.

Opening a mega cleaning drive organised by the Kozhikode Corporation in flood-affected areas in the city on Thursday, he said the campaign was necessary to ward off the possibility of outbreak of contagious diseases.

Around 2,000 volunteers, including members of a West Bengal-based non-governmental organisation, government officials, students, police personnel, political activists, corporation’s sanitation workers, among others, participated in it.

The Minister said that the number of people put up at relief camps in the district had come down to 500 now. Rehabilitation of those staying in the 171 houses which were completely damaged in the floods were on. Landslips and soil erosion had led to accumulation of waste in different parts of the district, which could result in the outbreak of vector-borne diseases too.

Officials claimed the mega sanitation drive had been able to clean the city on a single day.