The death of 48-year-old Joy, a sanitary worker at Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala shocked the entire State. The body of Joy was retrieved after 46 hours from the other end of a canal which meanders through the city carrying with it the entire garbage and solid waste. While the poor family of Joy, the lone brad earning member of the family, is in an uncontrollable grief, the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, Government of Kerala and the ruling CPI(M) have blamed the Indian Railways for the mishap that claimed the life of the sanitary worker.
The garbage was piled up over a period of time because of the callousness of the Corporation authorities, according to V D Satheeshan, leader of the Opposition in Kerala assembly. The Corporation boasts of the youngest mayor in the country who is the most ineffective and inefficient people’s representative, said R S Sasikumar, a one-man army waging battles with the authorities on behalf of the common man.
A start up company in Thiruvananthapuram has been providing robot “Bandicoot” to clean manholes as well as mountain of solid waste and garbage to other States but authorities in Kerala pay scant respect to such innovations. The canal meandering across the city passes through a tunnel under the railway tracks in Thiruvananthapuram Central Station and this has come handy for the education minister V Sivankutty and CPI(M) state secretary M V Govindan to defend Arya Rajendran, the controversial mayor.
The mayor appeared from nowhere on Monday as rescue teams pulled out Joy’s body from the canal and hogged limelight by sobbing and weeping in public. With the news channel crews withdrawing from the scene , the youngest mayor, who has made it known that her aim is to become an IPS officer, too made a quick retreat. She was seen hugging and crying in the arms of the local MLA while the onlookers were taken aback by her behavior.
“Mounting garbage and solid waste is a major problem haunting the residents of the capital city. The callousness of the local self-government authorities is the only reason behind the death of this poor sanitary worker,” said P Sujathan, veteran author and journalist.
“How can you blame the Railways for the present state of affairs? As far as I know, the Railways are executing their work with efficiency. But the waste is not generated by them. It is the sole responsibility of the Corporation and the department of public health,” said Sasikumar.
Interestingly, there are many start up units in the capital city itself which can address the issue of garbage cleaning at cheap rates. “But the State government is not serious about utilizing their expertise for reasons best known to the ministers and the party leaders. The mayor is said to carry a small bottle of glycerin in her hand bag for photo-ops wherever she goes,” said a senior government official.
