Local residents of Kothi and Avikkal Thodu are least convinced by the Kozhikode Corporation’s attempts to clear their doubts over the proposed sewage treatment plants (STPs) at the two locations.
Even though the corporation claims to have taken a few residents to an STP at Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, the protest committees claimed that whoever the corporation took to the capital were CPI(M) activists who had nothing to do with the protests committees. However, they took a trip to Thiruvananthapuram on their own, which has only further convinced them to go ahead with the protest.
Residents of Kothi and Avikkal had visited the Medical College STP and another one at Muttathara under the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation and had found the conditions there less than satisfactory. “The Mayor and party activists must have been to the Medical College facility when it was not operational. Contrary to their claim, officials told us that the water released by the plant was not fit for human consumption,” said T. Dawood, chairman of the protest committee at Avikkal.
Faisal Pallikkandy, chairman of the protest committee at Kothi, claimed that the plant mostly treated waste water and not sewage and hence could not be compared to the proposed plants at Kothi and Avikkal, even if the same MBBR (Moving bed biofilm reactor) technology is used here.
At the Muttathara plant, which has been operational for the past 10 years, the teams were appalled by complaints raised by local residents. “The plant is situated in 36 acres, and the nearest house is just three metres away from its boundary. And, the residents complained of skin ailments and stench emanating from the plant,” Mr. Pallikkandy said. “They also said that treatment did not take place at night, and waste water was being drained out into the nearest river,” he added.
“When the Muttathara plant came up, people around it were assured that sewage would be treated at the plant. But even after 10 years, it has not happened. When questioned, the authorities claimed that networking was not complete. But sewage from apartment complexes and residential areas is being treated there,” Mr. Dawood said. He wondered how the authorities could set up a sewerage network in thickly populated regions like Avikkal.
Meanwhile, the protest committee at Kothi approached the court and obtained an order for maintenance of status quo at the site for the proposed plant.
