Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Row over streetlight maintenance ends

Special Correspondent

Begin works soon, says Council

MAKING A POINT: The Mayor, T. Malaravan (extreme left), and the Coimbatore Corporation Commissioner, Anil Meshram (second left), listen to Opposition councillors during a Special Meeting of the Council on streetlight maintenance on Monday. Photo: M. Periasamy

COIMBATORE: : At its Special Meeting on Monday, the Coimbatore Corporation Council unanimously approved privatised maintenance of 30,030 streetlights in the city.

This brought to an end the nine-month uncertainty over maintenance. But the Council sought to remind the civic administration that its implementation should be speeded up to make up for lost time.

The meeting had only four resolutions - all of them on streetlights. A resolution each was moved for the North, South, East and West zones. Two private operators had bid successfully for two zones each. One operator was from Chennai and the other from Coimbatore.

Maintenance became a burning issue following charges of overpricing of accessories by private operators. After contract for the previous operator expired in September last year, these charges and disagreement over privatisation had derailed maintenance.

Opposition relents

Finally, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led Opposition and the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam settled for privatisation but opted for separate tenders for the four zones instead of only one operator for the entire city.

After the two operators were chosen, implementation was again halted when the office of the Commissioner of Municipal Administration (CMA) faulted zone-wise tenders and listed out discrepancies in the entire process.

Adjournment of two Council meetings, a fast by the Opposition and talks the Mayor, T. Malaravan, and the Opposition had with the Local Administration Minister and the CMA led to a breakthrough.

The CMA had left the decision to the Corporation, including the scrutiny of the eligibility certificate of the Chennai-based operator.

(It was found inadequate earlier by the CMA's office and it had even insisted on calling for fresh tenders.) The Special Meeting on Monday was convened to table fresh resolutions for the already agreed upon zone-wise contracts.

While the meeting was aimed at announcing an end to the issue, it did witness some bitter attack from the Opposition.

No sooner the meeting began than the Leader of the Opposition and DMK member, K. P. Jagannathan, rose to question the very need for such a meeting.

"As the Council had already approved the contracts, where is the need for a meeting to repeat the resolutions," he asked. Terming it a waste of time, some Opposition members said the process of implementation could have been continued without a Special Meeting.

They did not want any discussion on the resolutions and insisted that the Mayor pass all the four simultaneously.

Mr. Malaravan said the issue had pained the people and he even suspected a "motive" behind the reservations expressed earlier over the eligibility certificate of a bidder.

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