KOCHI: A mayors’ council meeting held in Kannur on Thursday came down heavily on the Railways for washing its hands of the onus of cleaning railway culverts despite the occurrence of the ‘Amayizhanchan canal’ tragedy.
“The divisional railway manager recently sent letters to all mayors stating that the railways had no responsibility in the cleaning up of railway culverts. The meeting strongly protested the same. The railway lines have been set up across canals having natural water flow. Cleaning of the railway culverts cannot be done like that of a normal drainage. The tragic death of a worker in the Amayizhanchan canal is before us,” said Kochi Mayor M Anilkumar, who is also the council president.
The railway lines are operated through the automatic signalling system and the trains run on electricity drawn from overhead power lines. Hence heavy machines can’t be deployed there, the council meeting pointed out. “As the Kerala High Court has stated, the railways is also responsible for the cleaning of railway culverts. The letter given by the railways is a blatant violation of the court order,” the meeting observed.
Both Railways and corporations are part of the government system. The railways shouldn’t forget about the revenue being earned from the state. Already there is a feeling that the central agency is ignoring the needs of the state.
“Instead of opposing each other, both Railways and the corporations should cooperate and work together. We convey our willingness to cooperate and jointly work in the waste management activities,” the meeting observed.
The council lauded the K-SMART programme of the state government and promised all backing for the effective implementation of the same in all municipal corporations. Referring to the rectification of property tax data to integrate the existing database with the K-SMART application, the council requested the state government to avoid charging interest on those who didn’t pay the tax due to non-receipt of the property tax modification demand from 2016 onwards.