Faced with the challenge of finding a solution to the worsening waste management crisis across the State, the State government has initiated steps to establish integrated municipal solid waste treatment plants in five more urban local bodies in the State.

Suchitwa Mission, the government’s nodal agency for implementation of public sanitation and waste treatment schemes in the State, had earlier invited tenders to set up large scale waste treatment plants in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi.

Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said in order to accelerate the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, the Centre had gone in for a total revamp of the programme.

Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has said that the country would take at least 10 years to achieve the Nirmal Bharath status, when all the 2.4 lakh grama panchayats in the nation could be declared free of open defecation under the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA).

The Suchitwa Mission, which is coordinating the activities of solid waste management in the State, is planning to launch a programme for compressing waste material into bales and packing it so as to process it later.

The initiative is being undertaken in the wake of the delay in executing its earlier plan to set up waste management units in major cities. The work on preparing bales and packing the solid waste will be done by competent agencies, to be selected through an official selection process. The project is to be launched at Thiruvanathapuram before being extended to other cities.

A rare tree rediscovered from Kerala 14 years ago is still categorised as Extinct on the Red List of International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The latest version of the list released early this week has described Cynometra beddomeii , “a large tree, which has only ever been recorded from Tambacherry Ghat” as regionally extinct in Kerala. It had also stated that the plant has “not been found since 1870, despite intensive explorations.”

Thiruvananthapuram: Australia is in the process of streamlining environmental clearances to projects in the mining sector, says Mr Peter Varghese, High Commissioner to India.

The Chief Minister blames the Corporation for "serious default", especially in implementing scheme for decentralised waste management

The row between the government and the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation over solid waste management intensified on Wednesday with Chief Minister Oommen Chandy blaming the Corporation for “serious default”, especially in implementing scheme for decentralised waste management.

There have been 385 deaths of newborns at the SAT hospital here within a year ending April 2012, a preliminary report on infection-related deaths at the hospital submitted by the Principal Secretary, Health, to the government, has stated.

According to a press note issued here on Sunday, there were 10,480 deliveries at SAT between April 2011 and April 2012.

Two pieces of coconut shell. Now on, students of Karthika Thirunal Government Vocational and Higher Secondary School in the city have promised themselves to pack this ‘out of school' item in their school bags.

An otherwise useless material at home, these coconut shells would soon go straight into their school's brand new steam kitchen as fuel. In will go the shells into the steam boiling unit and out will come delicious ‘idlis' and ‘sambhar.'

The government has accorded sanction for the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) necessary for setting up a fishing harbour at Valiathura in the city, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said here on Wednesday.

He was speaking after inaugurating the model ‘Matsyagramam' scheme designed for the holistic development of the fisheries sector at Kochuthoppu here.

RITES to draw up measures to protect the Karamana and Killi rivers

The State government has accorded permission to the Rail India Technical and Economic Services (RITES) to conduct studies for a Rs.500-crore pollution abatement project. The project will draw up measures to protect the Karamana and Killi rivers and the Karimadom tank in the State capital apart from studying the possible environmental impact of the project.

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