A council meeting of the city Corporation on Tuesday has entrusted the health committee to conduct an inquiry on an a labour camp for migrant workers, allegedly being run illegally by an individual, at Venganoor.
The local body had earlier closed down the camp following complaints from local people that it was being run from an unauthorised building, and that the running of a camp with more than 100 workers was causing difficulties to them.
Recently, the owner of the building submitted an application for reopening of the camp and sought permission for 150 migrant workers.
The ward councillor said in the council meeting that there was no need for a rethink on the earlier decision to close it down, as the opinion of the local population is against having such a camp in their locality. However, Mayor V.K.Prasanth ruled that a final decision can be taken only after the Health Committee submits a report after its inquiry.
The council meeting also decided to write to the government asking for one more chance for the beneficiaries of various welfare pensions to submit the declaration to make them eligible for the pension. The step was taken as several beneficiaries were unable to submit the same in two previous chances given by the State government and hence are not getting the pension credited to their accounts.
Welfare Standing Committee chairperson R.Geetha Gopal said that out of 64,967 beneficiaries, 49,820 had submitted the declaration. The declaration of 4,600 others have to be taken again, as they had data entry errors. She said that the online database of welfare pension beneficiaries needs to be constantly updated to remove the names of the beneficiaries who have passed away. But the lack of a system of producing the life certificate annually has prevented this being done effectively.
On the issue of allowing bunk shops in front of the Museum and at other major locations within the city, the Mayor said that the Corporation’s stand is against having such bunk shops on the main streets and is on having all of them together in designated vending zones in the city.
