THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Janakeeya Samara Samithi on Monday said a big ‘no’ to the garbage vehicles from the City Corporation entering the Vilappil panchayat and asked the State Government to implement the decision taken on December 21, 2011, to close down the Vilappilsala garbage treatment plant.
This was announced in the presence of a mass delegation from the panchayat which sat in front of the Secretariat raising these demands as the five-day period given by the Janakeeya Samara Samithi at a meeting convened by Urban Affairs Minister P K Kunhalikutty on January 24, 2011 for arriving at a decision regarding the waste disposal at the panchayat ended on Monday.
The Janakeeya Samara Samithi said that any move to implement the January 23 High Court order for opening the garbage treatment plant at Vilappilsala would be resisted.
‘’Those who come to Vilappil with the city waste will be severely dealt with,’’ said Janakeeya Samara Samithi president S Burhan.
The Janakeeya Samara Samithi also submitted a mass petition signed by nearly 50,000 persons from twenty wards of the Vilappil Panchayat and nearby panchayats to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy.
It highlighted the statements made by the Corporation councillors at the meeting held on January 24, that the city had solved the waste disposal problem by eighty per cent on its own.
The petition said: ‘’Neither the panchayat nor its people have to bear the waste of the city for the lapse from the city administration. There are rules to cancel the licence of hotels, hospitals and flats who violate the terms of waste management, but nothing of this sort has happened. Hence, the panchayat cannot be held responsible for the failure on the part of the Corporation in enforcing its own rules and regulations.’’
More than eighty per cent of the protestors who participated in the march and sit-in organised by the Janakeeya Samara Samithi were women.