Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Two Mayors will go to electorate with fresh promises, schemes

K.V. Prasad

Unkept vows may crop up during election campaign

COIMBATORE: One is a former Mayor and the other has just resigned from the post. And both face the electorate with fresh promise, even as a host of their earlier ones are yet to be fulfilled.

V. Gopalakrishnan, who was Mayor from 1996 to 2001, and T. Malaravan, who assumed charge in 2001, are the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) candidates for Coimbatore East and Coimbatore West constituencies respectively. Mr. Gopalakrishnan was with the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) when elected as Mayor in 1996. He joined the AIADMK after the civic polls in 2001, after Mr. Malaravan was fielded as mayoral candidate though the TMC was an ally of the AIADMK.

Mr. Gopalakrishnan, who belongs to an industrial family, won on a Congress ticket from Mettupalayam in 1989 Assembly polls. Mr. Malaravan rose from the ranks in the AIADMK and was its urban district secretary.

What both have in common is not merely the party they belong to or the mayorship they held. The ghost of unfulfilled promises will haunt both of them when they canvas votes in their constituencies that fall totally within the city limits.

Many projects

Schemes that were mooted during the tenure of Mr. Gopalakrishnan have not been implemented even at the point of Mr. Malaravan's resignation on March 31 this year. The balance sheet of both former Mayors show more liabilities in terms of important schemes. The underground drainage scheme and Pilloor second phase drinking water scheme are yet to take off and the vow to create a clean and green city is unkept.

Mr. Gopalakrishnan's election promise was to turn the city into a Singapore in terms of cleanliness. Mr. Malaravan too made a similar promise, but could get nowhere with it.

Drainage system

During Mr. Gopalakrishnan's tenure, a mass cleaning programme was done ward-wise to rid all the 72 wards of garbage and silt or blocks in the drainage. He was even critical of his own party councillors when they did not turn up for the programme in their wards. After a gap of two to three years since the 2001 civic polls, Mr. Malaravan revived the programme but no major change could be effected. During his tenure, some important schemes progressed to the point of being recommended for Central Government funds under its infrastructure development mission.

As for promises, he kept two of them. First, he got rid of the parking fee on the city roads. While that earned him some appreciation, the second one landed him in trouble - shifting of the compost yard from Kavumdapalayam to Vellalore.

Kavundampalayam borders Saibaba Colony and K.K. Pudur that fall in the city limits. Now garbage rots or burns at Vellalore and has brought upon the Corporation the wrath of the people there. AIADMK and Opposition sources say both candidates go to the voters with the burden of poor infrastructure and hygiene in the city but armed with the fresh promise of raising Coimbatore's concerns in the Assembly and bringing development to the city.

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