Support of parties sought

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The City Corporation held talks with an all-party delegation on Thursday, in a bid to gain support from political parties in implementing the decentralised solid waste management programme in the city from next month.  Mayor K Chandrika and her team of Standing Committee Chairpersons met the all-party team at the mini conference hall, where it was explained in detail the plans charted out by the Corporation for the coming days in decentralised waste management. As of now, the Corporation intends to implement biogas, vermicompost and ring-compost plants in households by providing subsidies to the public. However, one major suggestion that came up in the meeting was to consider providing the project free of cost to BPL families. The Corporation has short-listed five agencies, all government-accredited ones, to implement the decentralised programme. However, many participants said at the meeting that the agencies mostly focused on setting up biogas plants.  More viable models in vermicompost and ring-compost must be searched for.  The Corporation officials said that they were on the lookout for more models to be implemented in a greater number of wards.   CPI’s M Radhakrishnan, RSP’s K Jayakumar, CMP’s R Ramachandran, Socialist Janata’s Ajin S L, BJP’s Asok Kumar and UDF’s Johnson Joseph attended the meeting along with other district leaders of major parties and Corporation officials. The leaders pledged all support to the project and said that major campaigns must be kicked off to take it to all wards.