As the deadline for collecting public opinion and suggestions on the Smart City Project approaches, Coimbatore Corporation is looking for ways to reach as many people as possible. On Friday, it sent out vans to strategic locations where people would be able to drop in their suggestions into ballot boxes. However, according to sources, the vans did not go out on Saturday, Sunday and Monday because of absence of officials and heavy rains. On Tuesday morning, five vans set out again with instructions to visit two strategic locations. They would cover 10 locations each day. “We are not looking at numbers of suggestions but their quality and how practical and viable they are,” said K. Vijayakarthikeyan, Commissioner of Coimbatore Corporation. He added they were especially interested in learning what the youth had to say. And that is one reason, the vans visited various educational institutions in the city including Avinashilingam University and Kumaraguru College of Technology (KCT), besides the Brookfields Mall and Fun Mall the two other hangouts for youngsters and Diwali shoppers. “We visit colleges because, students can think out of the box and come up with creative and innovative suggestions on their vision for a city in which they will live in the future. The vans will visit more educational institutions,” he said. KCT is expecting to reach out to over 10,000 participants including staff, students and their parents to fill the smart city survey forms. It hopes to participate wholeheartedly in the survey and do its civic duty. They will fill the Smart City forms online, said a spokesperson from the college. The staff and students hope the administration takes their suggestions seriously and the survey does not remain just an empty exercise. They feel that the survey is an important way to connect with the common people and get their feedback about a smart city. The Corporation wants the people’s feedback on environment and pollution issues, drinking water access, congestion-free mobility, transparent governance, affordable housing and power supply and street lights. As of now, the vans had each collected nearly 350 responses. These and the ones coming in during the following days will be compiled and sent to the Smart City Project Consultants, ICRA.