Work on clean city project faces delay

Waste management efforts yet to take off in several wards

April 04, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 05:45 am IST - Thiruvananthapuram

: Work on the city Corporation’s ambitious waste management project My City, Beautiful City, launched last year, was scheduled to be completed in April when the city was to be declared completely clean. But, now it looks like the timeframe would get extended by a few more weeks, as work is yet to start in full swing in several of the 100 Corporation wards.

T.M. Thomas Isaac MLA, who anchored the project right from the start, in a Facebook post on Friday admitted that there had been a slackening in pace of late in the whole campaign. According to him, it would take at least two more months for all the wards to be declared clean, probably on June 5, World Environment Day.

Sources in the Corporation also said that with Dr. Isaac getting busy with other commitments, the energy visible on the ground in the early days of the campaign, when the CPI(M) pressed into service all its party workers for cleaning up the major dump yards, had slackened.

“Many did not like it when Dr. Isaac took charge. There had been opposition from the UDF to the setting up of his ‘My City. Beautiful City’ campaign office in the Corporation building. Then, the party congress and other commitments came up and the campaign lost pace a bit.

But, at the same time, it cannot be denied that a lot of progress has been made, especially in the setting up of aerobic bins, organic waste converters and biogas plants across several wards,” said the source.

As of now, 10 wards have been declared ‘clean’ by the City Corporation, over two phases. In his post, Dr. Isaac said at least 35 wards were actively moving towards the clean ward target, with 20 of them expected to complete it by this month-end. But, the major concern is the loss of focus from the key message of the campaign – treatment of waste at source.

Though there has been a sustained campaign to drive home this message, through advertisement campaigns even in theatres in the city, it has not made the desired impact among the general public.

According to Dr. Isaac, much of the focus is now on aerobic bins or biogas plants, which would hardly make it a sustainable solution. The slack response to the Corporation’s other initiatives such as kitchen bins is indicative of this trend.

To get over this, a model of treating waste at houses is being tried out in Peroorkada, where Dr. Isaac is back leading the campaign now, with house visits.

Isaac admits to slackening in pace of work

10 wards have been declared clean

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