Garbage heaps on Willingdon Island, Edappally-Aroor NH 66 Bypass, and NH 544 have become an eyesore. This has left tourism stakeholders fuming.
“With the tourist season kicking in, cruise liners have begun calling at the Samudrika terminal. The high-end tourists who arrive in these ships are often put off by the sight of garbage dumped on Willingdon Island and on roads that lead to Fort Kochi, Mattancherry, and other popular tourist locales,” said C. Satish, president, All Kerala Tour Guides’ Association.
Kerala Travel Mart (KTM) Society president Jose Pradeep recalled how 400 truckloads of garbage was removed from Willingdon Island in 2022 when the Kerala Travel Mart was hosted there to avoid foreign and domestic travellers leaving with a bad image of the State. “Going by the current trends, much more will have to be removed from the island now. Worse is the plight of the Fort Kochi beach and its once popular beachfront, which is slowly dying due to sea erosion and the haphazard manner in which people dump garbage in public spaces.”
An official of the Cochin Port Authority (CPA), which owns Willingdon Island, said the CPA was helpless since several motorists, septic tank waste collecting firms, and others prefer to conveniently dump waste on either side of the Kundannur Junction-Mattancherry BOT bridge stretch which has no habitation. “Our plan to erect fence on either side of the road to put an end to the menace and to prevent overgrowth of weeds into the road has been withheld since the stretch is likely to be widened by the National Highways Authority of India [NHAI] for bettering port connectivity. The garbage heaps also attract birds that are a threat to aircraft from the adjacent naval airport,” the official added.
The Kochi Corporation is doing its best to promptly clear garbage that is brought in by Haritha Karma Sena personnel from houses and establishments, said Mayor M. Anilkumar. “Sadly, people are wantonly dumping garbage on roads and open spaces. We undertook at least six special drives to clean garbage from Willingdon Island since March. All the effort is proving futile,” he added.
National Highway 544 through which tourists from the Cochin International Airport commute to the city, West Kochi, and neighbouring districts too has its share of garbage heaps, especially at Kalamassery.
Officials of the NHAI, which owns the highway stretches, have been complaining of people often dumping garbage in drains on either side of NH corridors, choking them and causing flooding of service roads. Earlier this month, the agency installed a row of bollards on a stretch that was prone to garbage dumping on Container Road.
