THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Clean up or pay up, the Corporation has decided to tell landowners who allow their unused plots in the city to be overrun by vegetation and turn into breeding grounds for snakes and mosquitoes. The local body has received a flurry of complaints from hapless neighbours on the issue over the past months.Following a City Express report on Friday (‘Breeding Grounds for Snakes’), the Health Standing Committee of the Corporation included the issue in the agenda for its meeting on Friday and decided to issue warnings to the landowners within a month. If warnings do not work, the Corporation would begin issuing formal notices, Health Standing Committee chairperson S Pushpalatha said.Friday’s meeting also discussed whether the Corporation itself should clean up the said lots and slap the bill on the landowners.The Corporation is yet to ascertain the exact number of plots that lie neglected, Pushpalatha said. The number would be known only after a meeting of Health Inspectors planned for next Friday, she said.Corporation Health Officer Dr D Sreekumar said approximately 25 landowners were issued notices in the past three years by the City Corporation asking them to clean up the plots. Legal action was taken in 10 cases.In two separate reports, City Express had related the plight of people who resided next to plots neglected by owners. Repeated complaints by residents regarding a plot at GPO, which had transformed into a trash dump and home to snakes and other reptiles, had fallen on deaf ears. Similar was the case with two plots at Temple Junction at Sasthamangalam, one of which is owned by a prominent actor."Normally, two steps are taken when the owner neglects his duty. The first option is that the Corporation itself cleans the surroundings and asks the landowner to meet the expenses. The second step is taken when the client fails to pay up. Then, the Corporation takes the matter to court,’’ he said. The first option has been adopted in several instances, he said."One file is pending before the court where a landowner of a plot near Manacaud failed to remit money to the Corporation after it was cleaned by the local body,’’ he said.It is the responsibility of the landowner to keep his land safe from litterbugs. Some owners protect their unused plots by erecting walls or by appointing guards.
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