All Corporation councillors should join hands to ensure that a total plastic ban comes into effect in the city by January 1, Mayor K. Chandrika has said.
She was speaking at a special meeting of the Corporation council convened here on Friday to discuss the garbage problem in the city.
Each councillor should ensure that the plastic ban takes effect in his or her ward. The councillors should approach all commercial establishments in their ward and convince them of the importance of the plastic ban, she said.
Councillors should take the lead in ensuring that marriage halls in their wards compulsorily install waste treatment plants so that the waste generated there need not be taken out. It was time the Corporation moved to the second phase of the pipe-compost scheme, she said.
The council unanimously adopted a government order increasing subsidy for the purchase of biogas plants to Rs.5,000. Participating in the discussion, Leader of the Opposition in the council Johnson Joseph urged all councillors to join hands to ensure that at least one biogas plant was installed in each corporation ward.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader in the council Ashok Kumar declared full support for the Corporation’s attempts at managing the garbage crisis.
“The Mayor should take steps to see to it that the mobile incinerator that is now functioning in the city is taken by rotation to different wards so that the garbage piled up in different parts of the city can be burnt,” Mr. Kumar said.
Chala councillor Usha Satheesh told the council that while she was not averse to a solid waste treatment plant being installed at Chala, the facility could not be used to treat garbage from other parts of the city. “I disagree with the notion that Chala generates about 35 tonnes of waste a day. By my reckoning, there will only be about 10 tonnes of waste generated in the area,” she said.
In his address, Thampanoor councillor R. Harikumar said the Corporation should go after big business establishments that give away their goods in plastic covers, and not restrict itself to imposing fines on small shops.
Reception to Cleemis
The council resolved to accord a civic reception to Cardinal Mar Baselios Cleemis on December 10. The Chief Minister and the Leader of the Opposition were expected to take part, Ms. Chandrika told the council.
The meeting mourned Communist Party of India (Marxist) intellectual P. Govinda Pillai and thespian P.K. Venukuttan Nair.
