KOCHI: Coming down heavily on the Kochi corporation over the incident in which a child fell into a deep drain in the city on Thursday night, the Kerala High Court on Friday observed that it was an accident that could have gone terribly bad. Expressing shock over the incident, the court said: “This is nothing new in Kerala. These kinds of gaps in pedestrian areas are common across the state.”
The court directed the Kochi corporation to ensure that all open drains and pits in the pedestrian paths of the city are either properly covered or barricaded within two weeks. The court noted the footpath on MG Road in Kochi is in a bad condition.
Justice Devan Ramachandran said: “The absolute imperative of making the city safe for every citizen has now attained acme proportion with this incident. Unless we act now, the day would not be far when we would have to see the full consequences of such an incident. This is unthinkable!”
The court made the remarks when amici curiae reported that a child fell into a deep drain as it was not properly barricaded or closed. It observed that a city where citizens cannot walk is not worthy to be called such.
Babu Abdul Kader, the secretary of the corporation of Kochi, appeared in person in the court and apologised for the incident. He submitted that the corporation is taking every measure in terms of the directions of the court to make the pedestrian areas safer in Kochi.
He then assured the court that all the open drains, pits and others, will either be covered, or will be barricaded within the next two weeks.
A committee constituted by the court and led by the district collector has been told to oversee the action and conduct a security audit with respect to the pedestrian areas. The committee has been asked to submit a report in this regard before court by the next posting date on December 2.