more-in The Thiruvananthapuram Corporation will soon commission a 20-kW micro-hydroelectric plant at Kanjirampara. Convening the council meet held on Thursday, Thiruvananthapuram Mayor V.K. Prasanth said the project that was undertaken by the Energy Management Centre near the Kaduvetti bridge, constructed across the Kili river in the Kanjirampara ward, was likely to be completed by May. Touted to be the first such project to be implemented by a panchayati raj institution in the country, it was being undertaken at an estimated cost of ?40 lakh. Two 10kW-generators had been installed at the plant that would be handed over to the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation free of cost, following which the civic body would be required to supervise its maintenance, the Mayor said. To be fed to grid “A meeting that was chaired by the Chief Secretary had decided that the power generated by the plant would be fed into the KSEB grid on the basis of a power purchase agreement. The hydroelectric plant will result in long-term savings for the Corporation,” he said. The council also ratified a prior agreement to establish a statue in memory of former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on the premises of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC). The Corporation has been issued permissive sanction to construct a park on a plot of 19.5 cents under the Green Space and Parks component of the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (Amrut) scheme at an estimated cost of Rs. 5.36 crore. The corporation has been accorded permission to undertake the beautification and maintenance of the plot for 10 years, Mr. Prasanth said. Skywalks The corporation approved a proposal to construct skywalks near the St. Mary’s School, Pattom, and Government Girls’ Higher Secondary School, Cotton Hill. However, the decision to hand the project over to the private agency, Sun Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd., was objected by the Opposition BJP councillors, who alleged that adequate discussions had not been taken in the issue. However, the Mayor dismissed such allegations and said that several discussions had been conducted prior to finalising the implementing agency. R. Satheesh Kumar, chairman of the Corporation’s town planning standing committee, also said that the local body will have no financial burden in the project and that demonstrations had been conducted by the agency at the Corporation office in the presence of the officials concerned. The Corporation will also establish a skywalk at East Fort on the basis of approval of the heritage committee.

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