Facing flak from the CPI-M controlled city corporation over the garbage treatment plant issue, Union Minister and local MP Shashi Tharoor today dismissed the charges against him as politically motivated.

In a rejoinder to Mayor K. Chandrika, who has accused him of not allocating any funds for the garbage treatment plant on the outskirts of the city despite being the local MP, he said this was an attempt to “obfuscate the real facts about the gross failure of the LDF-controlled Corporation”.

In spite of the Centre’s financial assistance, the civic body had failed in effectively managing the affairs for the past many years and the remarks of the Mayor were “ill-founded and politically motivated”, Tharoor said.

The Corporation had miserably failed to utilise the Central assistance of Rs 19.64 crore out of the total project cost of Rs 24.56 crore for solid waste management in the State Capital, he said.

The closed garbage plant at Vilappilsala was one of the components of the project envisaged under this central assistance. Only 47 per cent of the total amount was utilised so far and the physical achievement was 35 per cent, he said.

The plant was originally meant to have a leachate treatment facility, a filtration system and smoke-pollution controls. It was the gross irresponsibility of the Left Corporation to start the plant’s operations before these were installed, he added.

Had these systems been installed, the residents in the village where the plant was located would not have suffered from pollution, toxins and poisoned ground water, which led to their protests.

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