Ollur: The pickup vans purchased by the Thrissur corporation inorder to meet the requirements of the Haritha Karma Sena are now left to ruin under open skies. Five pickup vans have been parked in the premises of a Pakalveedu in the Ollur zone, for over months now. The government is said to have purchased these vehicles via the Government e Marketplace. One pickup van costs around Rs 7 lakh. As per the version of the health wing of the corporation, tenders were invited twice for setting the container bodies for the pickup vans, however the process remained uncompleted.

The small pickup vans were bought with the intention of carrying the sorted garbage from various divisions to the waste treatment plants. Apart from these vans, there are several other abandoned corporation vehicles lying in a vacant area near a pond in Panamkuttichira. None of these vehicles are parked under sheds/shelters. Despite repeated requests of the counsellor to bring the parked vehicles under roofings, nothing has been done in this regard so far.

Apart from these vehicles, ‘Enthiran’ , a high-tech vehicle which is supposed to be used for cleaning purposes on city roads, had been lying unused for the last one year. When the plight of the vehicle made news and laxity of the officials came into public notice, in a bid to save their face, the corporation officials spent lakhs of rupees for repairing the vehicle. However the services of ‘Enthiran’ have been put on hold yet again. The main reason for the ordeal is the lack of availability of people with the technical expertise to operate the vehicle. However, the corporation officials put the blame on the narrow city roads, saying that it is difficult to operate such vehicles on the small roads in the city. ‘Enthiran’ also remains abandoned now.