THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The sub-committee formed by the Mediation Committee of the High Court held its first meeting at the Secretariat on Tuesday ahead of submitting its report looking at ways to end the Vilappilsala imbroglio.
While the agitators at Vilappil and the Vilappil panchayat officials stuck to their demand to pack the treatment plant out of their panchayat limits, the Corporation is learnt to have offered more sops to the village, provided the people and panchayat cooperate with the operations of the plant.
The Janakeeya Samithi members among the 18-member committee are learnt to have asked for a compensation of ` 10 lakh for every family residing within a five-km radius of the Vilappilsala garbage treatment plant. They reiterated their demand that State Government should keep its word and close down the
plant. They also wanted the plastic heaps in the area out of sight. And an assurance that there would not be any provocation from any side.
The panchayat officials, meanwhile, apart from repeating that they would stand with the local people, put forward a suggestion to form a sub-committee to chart out an awareness campaign in the panchayat with regard to the activities the Corporation plans to carry out there. If the people are assured of the activities of the plant, the panchayat would be reassured, they said.
The Corporation, meanwhile, has offered jobs to the locals and more
infrastructural facilities in the area, if only the agitators and the panchayat cooperate with the running of the expensive treatment plant lying closed for more than three months now.
The sub-committee has three other representatives of the State Government, four representatives each of the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, the Vilappilsala Action Council and the Vilappil grama panchayat and one each from the Kerala State Pollution Control Board (PCB) and the State Health Department.
The sub-committee’s report will be submitted to the Mediation Committee on March 23, when the latter resumes the mediation process.