THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The corporation’s special council meeting on Wednesday saw heated arguments between the ruling front and the opposition over frequent waterlogging in various parts of the city.
The UDF councillors, raising placards, boycotted the meeting within half an hour of the start of the meeting. They said the council discussions were a farce and the ruling front was not giving any value to the suggestions made by the opposition.
BJP councillor Thirumala Anil Kumar’s remarks about the encroachment of the banks of the city’s streams had thrown the council into a frenzy. Anil alleged that 90% of the encroachers were leftists, to which D R Anil of the CPM objected. Amsu Vamadevan of the CPM said a former BJP councillor continues to live on the banks of a canal despite the corporation giving them a house.
That resulted in an altercation between the BJP and the CPM members. The BJP members opposed giving microphones to others while one member was speaking. Meanwhile, Mayor Arya Rajendran requested the Centre to take immediate steps to provide timely warning to report climate change accurately in Kerala. Noting that the Union government systems supposed to provide warnings show deficiencies, the mayor said the Centre is not preparing a state-of-the-art weather forecasting system in the state despite repeated requests.
“The recent heavy rain in Thiruvananthapuram city resulted in unexpected waterlogging. Climate change has been haunting us for quite some time now. Flooding is caused by heavy rain in a short period of time. In such cases, the India Meteorological Centre, which is supposed to warn about extreme rain, does not issue such a notification,” the mayor said.
Arya said the civic body is using an old system that does not provide data in digital format for use in decision support systems. “The radar for the climate change alert is currently at VSSC. So we cannot use that all the time,” the mayor said. Kerala’s demand for modern Doppler radars since 2013 has not yet been considered, she added.