Foreign workers pitch in to help maintain their green pastures

On days off from his job as a construction site supervisor, Mr Vijayakumar Nagarajan, 31, likes visiting East Coast Park to relax.

But yesterday, the S-Pass holder from Tamil Nadu was there to help clean it up instead.

Together with more than 330 colleagues - foreign and Singaporean - from GATES PCM Construction, he had volunteered to pick up litter and sweep up debris along a 7km stretch.

"The city is always clean, so we would like to help with the maintenance of the city. It's like 'good housekeeping'," said the Indian national who has worked here for 10 years.

The project is the firm's way of giving back to the community, said chairman and chief executive officer Kitnasamy Marudapan, who is known as Mr Krishna.

"We bring in such a large number of people, we are responsible for any good or bad that they might do." GATES PCM Construction has almost 600 workers, of whom more than 400 are foreigners.

Last year, close to 100 workers visited an old age home, giving presents to the residents and performing for them.

This year, Mr Krishna decided to give all his workers a chance to take part in a community activity if they wished.

Driver Rajaram Bhoopathy, 35, who is also from Tamil Nadu, said he was glad to help out. "We are very interested in doing this. We foreign workers, too, can do our part to clean Singapore."

The S-Pass holder has worked in Singapore for eight years and hopes to stay for more: "However long they want to give us the chance to work here, then we'll work here."

This article was first published on December 29, 2014.
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