Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan calls all-party meeting to address Thiruvananthapuram’s garbage problem

All-party meeting on July 27 to address Thiruvananthapuram's pollution crisis, with Chief Minister Vijayan leading the discussion.

An all-party meeting on July 27, 2024 will strive to seek political consensus for ridding Thiruvananthapuram city of garbage piles, plastic litter, urban refuse and sewage pollution.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will chair the online scheduled to start by 3 pm. V.D. Satheeshan, opposition leader, and BJP leaders will attend, among others. 

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Mr. Vijayan had called the meeting in the wake of public outcry caused by the death of a sanitation worker who met a watery grave while cleaning the toxically polluted Amayizhanjan canal.

Coursing through the heart of the capital city, the Amayizhanjan Canal has become a noxiously black open sewer, a convenient trash dump, and a fertile breeding ground for mosquitoes that spread malaria and dengue fevers.

The contract worker’s death prompted the Kerala High Court to hold a special sitting. It appointed an Amicus Amicus Curiae, an impartial observer, to study the capital’s garbage problem. Mr Satheeshan had termed it a public health hazard and an eyesore.

Discomfitingly for the government, the High Court observed on July 26 that the polluted and choked-up Amayizhanjan canal was an “embarrassment” to the capital city.