At a time when the Fire and Rescue Services remain overworked with calls to attend to instances of fire in the wake of extremely dry conditions and unprecedented heat, those at the Thrikkakara fire station are frustrated with another task they could have very well done without.
In the past two months alone, the station attended around 30 calls for cleaning up roads following leakage of waste water from trucks carrying biodegradable waste from the Kochi Corporation limits to the Brahmapuram treatment plant.
“The slurry is extremely slippery and has been causing frequent accidents, mostly involving two-wheeler riders. At one point, we had to attend four or five calls a day and had to clean various stretches en route to the plant,” said a firefighter at the Thrikkakara fire station.
The spate of such incidents has led to a major public backlash as the demand for transporting waste in well-covered vehicles remains overlooked. The worst affected are techies as the road to the plant winds in front of Infopark and SmartCity campuses.
“For one thing, the water is extremely foul-smelling. Techies who prefer two-wheelers are the most affected as their neatly pressed clothes end up dirty after getting splashed by other speeding vehicles, not to mention frequent accidents. We had in the past raised the issue with the district administration and is now planning to take up the matter again since the issue has become progressively worse,” said Aneesh Panthalani, president, Progressive Techies, a collective of IT professionals.
Unni Kakkanad, health standing committee chairperson of the Thrikkakara municipality, lamented how the issue remained unresolved despite the court making adverse remarks. The municipality cannot interfere beyond a point since it may assume political overtones considering that the Kochi Corporation is ruled by the LDF, and the UDF is in power in Thrikkakara, he said. “This has been a running issue for long and not something that emerged recently. It is for the police to take action,” Mr. Kakkanad said.
The Thrikkakara police had indeed registered cases in the past, but the matter did not made any progress thereafter. Cases were registered against lorry drivers and contractors engaged for transporting waste under IPC Sections 269 (negligent act likely to spread infectious diseases) and 120 (causing nuisance and violation of public order).
