Kerala's commercial capital. Tourist hotspots in and around. Where you find all the latest car models zipping past. And the venue of the proposed Smart City project.
But at the same time a traffic nightmare. Last December, a trip from one end of MG Road to another took me around 40 minutes. I have similar memories from seven years back. With Smart City and hordes of cars to join the traffic in the not-too-distant future, where's the city headed? Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan waxed eloquent about bringing the metro to the city, after a trip on the Delhi Metro, but is it feasible for a small place like Kochi? As it is, the Left government is only about rhetoric.
But the bigger crisis now is that the city stinks, literally. The city does not have a proper dumping area for its tonnes of garbage. Kochi has tried to palm it off on neighbouring villages, but in a densely-populated state like Kerala with settlements all around, the villagers were bound to react. Finally, the authorities had to change their tune, after residents of Brahmapuram protested against dumping waste there. A solid waste treatment plant is coming up at the same place but then this should have been operating years ago.
An irate High Court too is a victim of the stink, pointing out recently that its functioning was paralysed for an hour because of the stench from the garbage lying on the nearby road
The administration, be it officials or politicians have been slow, but can't help feeling that the residents too should have woken up much earlier. Too much easy money and rampant consumerism and these issues are simply swept under the carpet.
Breeding spaces for mosquitos and chikungunya, tonnes of garbage is a scary prospect.
A photo I saw in a Malayalam newspaper last December said it all. A poster for the Suresh Gopi starrer "Smart City" pasted on a wall, while the area was strewn with garbage.
The wake-up call has been sounded, but Kochi simply cannot afford any let-up.
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