Where Are the Indore Model and Blueprint? Capital City Turns Into a Heap of Garbage Under BJP Administration

Thiruvananthapuram: "Indore model", "blueprint"... words the Thiruvananthapuram Mayor repeats daily. Ask where they are, and for months the answer has been the same – "there is time". City residents ask where that elusive time is, when it cannot be found to clear the garbage piling up in Thiruvananthapuram city, resolve the drinking water shortage, or control the proliferating stray dogs.

With sanitation work having collapsed due to the mismanagement of the governing council, the city has fallen into the grip of communicable diseases. The lapse in waste clearance began since Attukal Pongala. Pre-monsoon cleaning too has gone awry. Of the 563 aerobic bins installed for waste processing, half have broken down. The remaining ones have become unusable, filled with waste. Of the 10 biogas plants, only two are functioning. Various parts of the city have turned into heaps of plastic waste.

Three people died of dengue fever in the city, and one each died of influenza and amoebic meningoencephalitis. Mayor V V Rajesh mocks those who question the grave situation. The Mayor, surrounded by an advisory circle, often gives mutually contradictory responses. Widespread protest is mounting against the governing council, which relies on reels to conceal its administrative failure.

Meanwhile, Mayor V V Rajesh, having failed to carry out waste management in the capital city, has come out with bizarre claims to mask his incompetence. The Mayor's "finding" is that it is CPI(M) leaders and their followers who are dumping the waste in the city. It was at Wednesday's press conference that the Mayor spread these accusations in order to cover up the governing council's failures.

He claimed that CPI(M) workers were being sent out to dump waste in order to undermine the acceptance his administration is getting from public. When reporters asked him whether he has any proof, his reply was: "You go find out."

The Mayor also claimed that waste management was being carried out efficiently and that the capture of stray dogs had begun.

He further said that he would find land to set up the corporation''s own waste processing plant. The LDF responded that the Mayor was making such allegations to conceal administrative paralysis and incompetence.