Confusion prevails in the areas coming under the draft master plan for 2031, with the City Corporation demanding withdrawal of a government notification freezing construction activities in those areas. Mayor K Chandrika has pointed out that a certain clause present in the gazette dated September 23, 2013 was making the conditions in the draft master plan immediately applicable for certain areas.

  “The clause will be detrimental to areas from Attipra to Kattayikonam. Hence, the said clause must be removed and it has to be added that ‘status quo maintained’ until the detailed master plan is published,” said Chandrika in a press conference held here on Wednesday.

 As per the draft master plan, Kattayikonam and Mangottukonam areas are fully set aside for public institutions. Attipra and Kallingal are strategic zones. Kadakampally and Ulloor areas are to be turned into tourism zones. “These places are densely populated and when the draft plan was published neither the government nor the Town Planning department had mentioned that the above said matters would come into effect soon,” said Chandrika.

  Though there was a strong demand from the councillors and people’s representatives to publish the draft plan in Malayalam, only a concise material in 10 pages in the language was brought out finally. The draft master plan did not mention survey numbers or other details. According to the Mayor, this, in turn, posed difficulties for people to understand the draft master plan fully.

It has been almost a year since the shutters of the only slaughterhouse under the City Corporation at Kunnukuzhy got closed when it failed to manage the waste generated in a scientific way in the absence of a centralised waste treatment plant.

 While there is an absence of a mechanism to keep tabs on illegal slaughterhouses booming in the city and consumers are left with no option but to buy meat of suspicious quality, in a last-ditch effort, the civic body is trying to process the slaughterhouse waste at the biogas plant opened at Connemara market in Palayam recently.

 In order to revive its earlier proposal to slaughter smaller animals such as goats, the civic body has submitted a proposal to Pollution Control Board (PCB) to process the remains in the biogas plant at Connemara market, Palayam. “The proposal was submitted and we are awaiting a response from the PCB,” said health standing committee chairperson S Pushpalatha. The condition of the slaughterhouse was raised in the Assembly on Wednesday and Urban Affairs Minister Manjalamkuzhi Ali said the matter would be discussed with the City Corporation. “Compared to the waste generated after slaughtering large animals, the leftovers of smaller animals would be far less,” said veterinary doctor Dr Bijulal, who has been deputed in the veterinary hospital at Pettah after the closure of the slaughterhouse.