Sainik School Kazhakootam Biogas Plant Plan Dropped After Parents' Protest
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📅 Nov 8, 2026
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⏱️ 5 min read
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📅 Nov 8, 2026
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⏱️ 5 min read
Last verified: 8 November 2026. The decision and the mayor’s statement are ✅ CONFIRMED from two independent reports — Deccan Chronicle (7 November 2026, 8:12 PM) and Urban Acres (7 November 2026, 10:08 PM), both citing the mayor’s statement to The Times of India. Background dates and figures are from the same reports.
Photo: Pexels
Thiruvananthapuram Corporation has dropped its proposal to build a compressed biogas (CBG) plant on the campus of Sainik School Kazhakootam.
The plan was to seek about 20 acres of school land for a municipal solid waste-based facility, to be developed with Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. After parents, alumni, staff and nearby residents protested, the corporation stepped back.
Mayor V V Rajesh told The Times of India that the civic body has no immediate plans to pursue the project at the school. His words, as reported: “We have no such plans in Kazhakkoottam. We will continue the decentralised plan. However, we are not dropping the centralised treatment plant proposal.”
Read that carefully. The school campus is off the table. A centralised waste-treatment facility somewhere else in the city is not.
This was not a rumour doing the rounds on WhatsApp. The paper trail is documented:
The visit is what set everything off. Within two days, the parents’ association, former students and residents had made their opposition public — and the corporation dropped the campus plan.
The opposition was not about waste management itself. Parents and alumni said plainly that they are not against scientific waste treatment or clean energy. They were against the location.
Sainik School Kazhakootam was established in 1962 and runs under the Ministry of Defence. More than 600 cadets live on campus as boarders, and over 2,000 people live and work on or around it. Their concerns, as reported:
The school authorities declined to comment, citing defence rules. Parent and alumni associations had begun mobilising to take their concerns to the Ministry of Defence and the Kerala government before the corporation withdrew the plan.
Kazhakootam MLA V Muraleedharan said there is currently no proposal to establish such a plant on the school premises, and noted that some reports were based on speculation.
Here is the honest context. Thiruvananthapuram generates roughly 423 tonnes of solid waste a day — about 296 tonnes biodegradable and 127 tonnes non-biodegradable. The city has no functioning centralised waste treatment facility. Decentralised measures — household composting, green protocols, plastic bans — have helped but have not kept pace with the volume.
That is why the corporation was looking at a centralised CBG plant on the Brahmapuram (Kochi) model in the first place. The mayor has said that proposal stays alive, and the decentralised plan continues. What changed is only the site: not inside a Sainik School.
The memory of Vilappilsala — the village waste plant that collapsed into protests, contamination and a court-ordered shutdown — hangs over this whole debate. People in Thiruvananthapuram do not oppose proper waste treatment. They resist another badly sited facility near homes, schools or defence institutions.
If your child studies at Kazhakootam, or you are applying there through AISSEE 2027, nothing about admissions changes. Applications close on 2 December 2026 and the exam is on 31 January 2027.
What this episode does show is something parents rarely see: a school community pushing back, quickly and together, when a decision affects their children’s campus — and being heard. The Defence Ministry’s review of the joint assessment report will be the next documented step, and we will update this story if anything changes.
Has the biogas plant plan at Sainik School Kazhakootam been dropped?
Yes, for the school campus. Thiruvananthapuram Corporation has dropped its proposal to build a compressed biogas plant on about 20 acres of the Sainik School Kazhakootam campus. Mayor V V Rajesh said the civic body has no plans for the school site, though a centralised waste-treatment facility elsewhere in the city is still under consideration.
Why did parents oppose the waste plant at Sainik School Kazhakootam?
Parents, alumni, staff and nearby residents worried about daily garbage trucks, foul odour, flies and mosquitoes, health risks and groundwater contamination. Security was another concern: Kazhakootam is a defence school with strictly controlled campus access, and more than 600 cadets live there as boarders.
How far had the biogas plant proposal actually gone?
Further than a rumour. The mayor wrote to the Union Ministry of Defence on 6 June 2026 seeking land, the ministry’s Sainik Schools Cell replied on 3 November 2026, and a corporation team led by the mayor visited the campus on 5 November 2026 to assess the site. The opposition that followed the visit is what stopped it.
Does this affect AISSEE 2027 admission to Sainik School Kazhakootam?
No. The dropped proposal was about a municipal waste facility on campus land, not about admissions. AISSEE 2027 applications remain open until 2 December 2026 and the exam is on 31 January 2027, including for Kazhakootam.
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