Panel to recommend safety measures on tube wells appointed

Thiruvananthapuram, May 4 (UNI) The Kerala Government today decided to appoint a three-member committee headed by Water Resources Department Principal Secretary K J Mathew to recommend safety measures with regard to tube wells.

The State Cabinet took the decision in the wake of the death of a six-year-old boy when he fell into a 350-feet-deep tube well in Kanjangad of Kasaragode district on April 27.

The panel is to submit its report within a month, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy told mediapersons after the Cabinet meeting.

He said legal proceedings had already been initiated against the owner of the tube well.

Mr Chandy said a sum of Rs three lakh had been sanctioned to the parents of the boy, Praphul, for the purchase of a house as they have no house of their own. Praphul's mother, Vinodini, would be given employment as part-time sweeper at the District Hospital in Kasaragode.

The Cabinet also decided to deposit Rs 50,000 each in the names of the two children of S Thankachi, a physically-challenged woman who was killed in a bus accident at Vattappara in Thiruvananthapuram district on April 26 last.

Thankachi's husband, K Ravi, would be given employment as part-time sweeper at the Government Ayurveda Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram.

The Cabinet did not take any other decisions except the ratification of orders issued by the government relating to the requirements of the Election Commission for the conduct of the Assembly polls, Mr Chandy said.

Today's Cabinet meeting was the last one of the Oommen Chandy government.

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