At various points during the past year, the city Corporation has been announcing a list of ‘clean wards’ as part of its My City, Beautiful City project. One of the common features of these wards was their location. All of them happened to be located in the area called the ‘heart of the city,’ with the outlying wards never figuring on the list.
In fact, this has been a problem which has dogged these wards not just in waste management, but in most other developmental projects of the local body. These wards, some of which were added to the Corporation in the past two delimitation exercises, have never really figured in the scheme of things.
Another case in point was the Animal Birth Control programme of the local body to fight the stray dog menace. According to Valiyathura ward councillor Tony Oliver, the programme never reached the coastal wards where the problem is acute.
“When compared to the coastal wards, the wards in the city do not have as much of a stray dog problem. There have been several cases of people getting bitten by stray dogs in these wards. But, no dog catchers were seen here,” he says.
The divide is most visible at dusk, when the streetlights are supposed to come on. The centre, barring a few dark spots, is bathed in light whereas the wards in the periphery and even much further inside does not have streetlights except at junctions. The councillors from these wards have raised a hue and cry over this issue at several council meetings.
Another common complaint raised by councillors of recently added wards is that the people living in these areas have to travel all the way to the main office at Palayam to get all their certificates and clearances. The zonal offices of the Corporation are seen as a failure. This was one of the issues raised by those who mooted the idea for bifurcation of the wards in the Kazhakuttam area to form a separate municipality.
The next governing council at the Corporation has its work cut out. If the developmental measures fail to reach these wards, the demand for bifurcation is bound to get stronger.
