THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The BJP-led Thiruvananthapuram corporation has approached the Centre, seeking revisions to the CITIIS 2.0 (City Investments to Innovate, Integrate and Sustain) project, the DPR for which has already cleared multiple rounds of scrutiny and is now nearing final approval.
According to sources, the civic body has suggested some changes in the vehicles being procured for moving non-biodegradable waste. “Regarding vehicles, the shape they suggest doesn’t suit us. What they say is fully covered. For plastic collection, if it’s fully covered, it can accommodate only 500 kg of plastic waste in a vehicle with a capacity of two or three tonnes. That will be difficult for us to use.
We have suggested a small change to them,” an official said. The request submitted to the Union government has also been brought to the notice of the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), the coordinating agency for the programme.
An official associated with the project said that reworking the DPR at this stage could be difficult, particularly because the project is being supported by French development agency Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and German development bank KfW. “Any major change will have to go back to the funding agencies as well. The proposal has already gone through several levels of scrutiny,” the source said.
The CITIIS 2.0 exercise began in 2024, while the agreement for the project was signed in February 2025. After the revised proposal was approved at the relevant stages, teams inspected the proposed interventions in Thiruvananthapuram. The official said that an independent third party consultant was also appointed for vetting the proposal.
A senior official of the civic body said that environmental and social studies are progressing. The Centre, having approved `93 crore for CITIIS 2.0, will be chipping in with 80% of the funding while the rest will be covered by the state government.
“An agency in Chennai has been selected for environmental and social studies. It will take them around three months to complete their study. They will be studying the social viability of the project. Once they submit the study report, the Centre will approve the project. We are expecting the project to take off in the next three months,” the official said.
