A huge mound of garbage dumped by the civic body on the banks of Pallikkulam, a pond which once served as a major source of water for the city, fell into the pond as its wall collapsed.
The city Corporation had cleaned up Pallikkulam, one of the oldest ponds in the city, at a cost of ₹37 lakh sometime ago. It also constructed a compound wall at ₹17 lakh. The authorities said they would set up a park on the banks of the pond.
However, the Corporation started dumping massive quantities of waste collected from the city on the banks of the pond. When local people questioned the move, the authorities said they were using the place for segregating waste and it would be removed from there daily. But heaps of waste remained piled up near the pond.
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On Thursday night, the compound wall collapsed in the rain and the piled up waste landed in the pond, which is used by many people for bathing and washing.
Local people are irked by the move of the Corporation to use the place for dumping and segregating waste. Instead of protecting ponds in these times of water scarcity, the civic body is polluting water sources, they said. Even environmental activists are silent about this, they alleged.