Technocity land cannot be made garbage dump, say panchayats

Proposal unacceptable to local people; protest meeting held

Setting up of decentralised garbage treatment plants continues to be a critical issue in the city with reports of local agitations against treatment plants coming every day.

On Sunday, the Mangalapuram and Andoorkonam grama panchayats organised a protest meeting against the proposal for constructing a garbage treatment plant inside the proposed Technocity campus at Pallippuram.

People's representatives, including A. Sampath, MP; M.A. Wahid, V. Sasi, and Palode Ravi, MLAs; and Pothencode block panchayat president M. Muneer participated in the meeting.

GO issued

“The State government has issued a GO to provide 10 acres of land on the Technocity campus for setting up a garbage treatment plant. The people in these areas view this as an unfair move. The State government had acquired around 504 acres here for the purpose of setting up an IT Park. Instead, if a garbage plant is set up here, even if it is in a portion of the land, it is unacceptable to the people of the locality,” Mr. Muneer said.

Locations within city

“The people oppose the move to set up a treatment plant for the Thiruvananthapuram City Corporation in a locality which does not fall under it. We have identified many places within the city where the Corporation can set up waste-treatment plants. It is unfair to thrust the garbage of the city on our villages,'' Mr. Muneer said.

Representatives of the two grama panchayats have already met Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and submitted a memorandum in this regard.

Talks with Chandy

The Chief Minister would hold talks with representatives of various political parties from Mangalapuram and Andoorkonam on January 12, he said.

Meanwhile, officials of the Suchitwa Mission said that the public sentiment against decentralised treatment plants was unwarranted.

The Suchitwa Mission's proposals to set up similar decentralised treatment plants of 25-35 tonne garbage processing capacity in Chalai market, Nettukalthara Open Jail, and Vizhinjam have also met with similar opposition from the public.

“What we are planning to set up in these places are modern garbage treatment plants functioning on non-polluting technology such as biomethanation, plasma gasification, and pyrolisis. These are factory model garbage treatment technologies that have been successfully implemented in different parts of the world,'' a Suchitwa Mission official said.

Plastic shredding units

Even the proposal for setting up plastic shredding units in the Manacaud market and the Pappanamcode Industrial Estate had to be temporarily shelved because of protests, he said.

“We have identified 12 agencies to implement these projects. Suchitwa Mission has gone through an elaborate process to select these technologies and technology providers. It is lack of awareness of these technologies that has led to these protests,'' he said.