Adding insult to the already polluted Killi river’s injury, whole trees felled as part of a construction work along the river have been dumped into water body and left to rot.
Civil works along the river near the Jagathy bridge have led to the cutting of a few trees which have then been left in the slow-moving water body. They are yet to be cleared even after three days as of Friday. This has not gone down well with those residing in and around the area.
“The guys who are doing the civil work on the banks have atrociously dumped the debris, including the coconut trees, into the river. This now presents a ghastly scene to anyone who respects Nature,” said Riju Stephen, a resident of Jagathy.
The agency responsible for the construction, the Irrigation Department, on the other hand says that the debris will be cleared away immediately after the work is over. “The construction is part of our flood mitigation works,” said superintending engineer Ravindranath.
“As the river is prone to floods during the monsoon, we are constructing embankments at several points along the river. But this matter of the vegetation debris will be looked into,” he said.
The Killiyar, the main tributary of the Karamana, was once a lifeline of the city. It is now a dying river with garbage and untreated sewage being unscrupulously dumped into it. Several initiatives have been announced by different government departments to clean up this river system over the years.
The latest is a Rs 5-crore project - the Karamana-Killi River Scientific Management (Pilot) Project - of the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE) and the Thiruvananthapuram Development Authority (TRIDA) to revive the water body.