KERALA

The opposition councillors in the Kochi corporation have come up against a public private PARTNERSHIP (PPP) project to set up a garbage treatment plant and demanded that the new plant should be funded by the .

The state government has designed a project titled KeralaSolid Waste Management Project to resolve the issue of waste management, said opposition leaderAntony Kureethra.

World Bank has given $300 million to the state government for the project. The state government should allot funds for constructing the 100-tonne per day (TPD) solid waste treatment plant from Kerala Solid Waste Management Project, said Kureethra.

TheKerala governmenthas included those who are going abroad for studies and EMPLOYMENT purpose, in the prioritised group under the 18-45 years age category for the Covid-19 vaccination.

An immediate decision has been taken in this regard as many foreign countries have madevaccination compulsoryfor those arriving there for study and job purposes,HealthMinister Veena George said.

Besides them, 10 othercategorieswere also included in the prioritised group and an order was issued for the same, she said. Field staff of various government departments including food and civil supplies, postal, social , Women and Child Development, Fisheries and teachers assigned for the valuation ofSSLC, Higher Secondary and Vocational Higher Secondary examinations were among those newly added to the prioritised group.
As many as 32 categories of people belonging to the age group were earlier included in the priority category after considering them as frontline fighters against Covid-19.

Live births inKeralarecorded the highest drop in a decade in 2021, showed civil registration figures given by the local self-government department. The number of live births dipped by 71,000 between 2020 and 2021, and for the first time in the past decade, the state’s live births went below four lakh.

Ernakulam was the lone exception among the districts. While live births decreased by 1,000 to 16,000 in other districts, in Ernakulam it increased from 26,190 in 2020 to 27,751 in 2021. The steepest drop was evident inMalappuram,KannurandKozhikode, which recorded a decline of 18%, 22% and 26%, respectively. Districts like Trivandrum,KollamandThrissurrecorded a decline of 5,000 to 6,000. Over the past 10 years in Kerala, live birth rate has shown marginal variations between years. Officials involved in registration of vital events said delayed registration could not be taken into account while calculating live births in the state.