Rains hit Kerala; Met to decide on official declaration in 24 hrs

Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan has said that the State government will soon adopt the benefits of technological advancements including Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) surveillance cameras in order to ensure the effective implementation of waste management.

He was launching the Janamaithri Waste-free Town programme at a function held here on Saturday. The awareness programme is being jointly implemented by Kottayam Janamaithri Police and the Student Police.

KOZHENCHERRY: Water Resources Minister P J Joseph said that the coverage of Japanese Drinking Water Scheme would be extended to more districts in the state.

Reviving its preference for hydel systems as sources of sustainable power generation, the State once again is opening up investment opportunities in ‘green' power with the identification of 57 small hydro-electric projects that have a combined capacity to generate nearly 170 MW of power (more than 440 million units a year).

The ‘green power house' is being opened up after a gap of two decades and is a key feature that expects to lure investors through Emerging Kerala 2012.

PALA: Following reports on the sales of contaminated river water as drinking water, the district food inspector has submitted a report on the pollution of the Meenachil river to District Collector Mini Antony.

An official team, led by Pala RDO Joy Varghese and district food inspector David John, had on Sunday collected water samples from the Meenachil and sent them to the Regional Analytical Laboratory in Kakkanad, Kochi.

All houses to be brought under waste management network

The first of the source-level waste processing schemes, declared in the annual budget of the State for 2012-13, will come up in Pala municipality. Speaking at the meeting called to discuss the issue at Pala on Tusday, Finance Minister K.M. Mani said all the houses within the municipal area would be brought under the waste management network within two months.

A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Monday directed the State government to ensure that no tobacco products of any nature are sold within 100 yards from the outer limits of the boundary walls or fence of educational institutions.

A Bench, comprising Acting Chief Justice Manjulla Chellur and Justice A.V. Ramakrishnan Pillai, directed the Central government and the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to ensure that scenes violating the Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products

Finance Minister K.M. Mani has proposed a two pronged approach to address the state’s worsening waste management crisis with an allocation of Rs 100 crore each for source level waste treatment plants and centralised high tech waste management plants in the state annual budget for 2012-13.

It has been proposed to construct large scale technology oriented waste processing plants in PPP model in Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam, Kottayam and Kozhikode districts with an allocation of Rs 100 crores.

KOCHI: Summer is the cruellest for the people of Kuttanad as drinking water would be the most sought-after thing in Kuttanad. The waterlogged areas of Kuttanad like Chambakulam, Edathua, Kainakary and Thayankari are reeling under acute shortage of potable water.

According to the people in Edathua, more than six wards of the panchayat have no water pipeline connection and the drinking water is brought here in boats from distant places.

Urbanisation, influx of pilgrims, fertilizer-intensive farming, and indiscriminate sand-mining have impacted on the water quality of Manimala river, a major source of drinking water in Kottayam and Pathanamthitta districts.

A report published in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, an international journal devoted to progress in the use of monitoring data in assessing environmental risks to man and environment, highlights the deterioration in water quality caused by human intervention, especially in the upper reaches of the Manimala river.