With monsoon season around the corner, the local self-governing bodies are gearing up to undertake the cleanliness drive and complete this before March 31st. It is unknown whether the rain arrived earlier last year, but the cleanliness drive headed by the local self-government in 2024 was partial and ineffective.

Pre-monsoon sanitation has become an unavoidable precaution for a state that is under constant threat of monsoon epidemics. The seemingly shambolic waste collection and treatment in Kerala accounts for the mishmash of trouble the state witnesses during the monsoon season. Many novel experiments were rolled out to eradicate the waste management dilemma, but nothing brought the desired results so far.

The country has some of the most successful waste collection and treatment sites. Kerala also houses some of the best treatment plants in India. Nothing is being put to good use by the local self-government department. The officials vie for temporary relief, and as a result, the mess gets piling up. Today, roadsides and empty fields in most urban areas of the state are littered with garbage bags. This includes meat wastes, hotel waste and hospital waste. A large part of the waste enters water bodies, contaminating them while also polluting the air.

Not just small canals and ponds, even the Vembanad Lake, the longest in India, has turned into a garbage carrier. If pre-monsoon sanitation is to be successful, proper and effective action plans for waste management will be a requisite. There was news that the Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation has formulated an action plan on this issue. The councilors have also come forward to put politics aside and join hands in pre-monsoon cleaning efforts. Observance of dry days, cleaning of drains and streams, a special cleaning program in educational institutions and hostels, protection of wells and mosquito control are included in the action plan.

Things will be easier if a special committee is formed ward-wise to make waste management more meticulous. More than anything, the project requires full participation from people. There is debate over why Kerala lags in keeping public places clean. An effective cleanliness drive during this monsoon season could stop such questions from taunting officials again.