The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Sri Lankan team on study visit to Alandur municipality

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 26, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Sri Lankan team on study visit to Alandur municipality

Staff Reporter

The delegation also visits sewage treatment plant at Perungudi Twenty-plus team wants to get an idea of how things are done here

SHARING EXPERIENCES: A Sri Lankan delegation at the sewage treatment plant of the Alandur Municipality at Perungudi, on Tuesday. — Photo : A. Muralitharan

TAMBARAM : A delegation from Sri Lanka comprising Chief Secretaries and Commissioners of municipal administration of the eight provinces of the country visited Alandur municipality on Tuesday in order to get an idea of the basic amenities and infrastructure facilities so that they could implement similar facilities back in the island nation.

The delegation was led by Cashian Herath, Secretary, Ministry of Provincial Councils and Local Government and comprised 20 others. The delegation has been in Chennai for the past two days and would be visiting Bangalore on Wednesday and Thursday. According to Mr. Herath, the idea behind the delegation's visit the two Indian cities was to get an idea on how urban local bodies functioned and executed basic amenities.

There were 330 local bodies in Sri Lanka that included municipal corporations, town councils and Pradesiya Sabha (similar to village panchayats) and of them, only 18 among had underground drainage network.

They came to know about the project in Alandur implemented with the participation of the people, private sector and the government and the lessons they had learnt was very helpful, Mr. Herath said.

The Asian Development Bank has been implementing the Local Government Infrastructure Improvement Project (LGIIP) in Sri Lanka in association with the Tamil Nadu Urban Development Fund, said Abhijit Sankar Ray, capacity building specialist with the Bank. As TNUDF was closely associated with some of the developments in Tamil Nadu, it was decided to bring the Sri Lankan delegation here, he said.

In the morning, R.S. Bharathi, Alandur Municipal Chairman, briefed the delegation about the history of the drainage scheme and the manner in which it was implemented with the participation of all sectors.

The delegates were also given a presentation on e-governance currently on in the different municipalities in the State.

Gangadhar Jha, team leader, LGIIP, said the primary motive behind e-governance was to bring about transparency and reduce corruption.

"Sanctioning building plans has almost become a goldmine of corruption," he remarked.

The Sri Lankan delegation later visited the sewage treatment plant of the at Perungudi municipality.

The lessons learnt during the course of their four-day visit to Chennai and Bangalore would be put to use while devising schemes in their nation, the delegates said.

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