Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

They look for good roads, clean city

K.V. Prasad

As councillor-aspirants from various parties gear up to face the electorate

COIMBATORE: With 20 days left for the elections to the Coimbatore Corporation, a mix of optimism and pessimism over development runs through the city. Even as councillor-aspirants from various parties gear up to face the electorate in 72 wards, they are aware of the public waiting to confront them with a balance sheet on development.

With no repairs to roads for over a year and rain worsening the condition by the day, much of the public ire against the Corporation is over bad roads. Even as people are upset that no major development has taken place over the last 10 years, they expect at least the basic requirements such as good roads and sanitation to be ensured.

Co-ordination

"Our roads are terrible. Improvement on this front is needed all over the city," says V. Ramesh of Rajeshwari Nagar near Meena Estate. "There should be greater co-ordination between the Corporation and other agencies that dig roads for cable laying or drainage repair," he says.

Admitting that not much had happened so far, former Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam councillor S. Murugan says that if the balance sheet shows more liabilities, the situation will be reversed if his party wins the civic elections.

Basic amenities

Mr. Murugan, who was councillor from 1996 to 2001, argues that at least basic amenities such as roads and drainage had been provided during that period. But, he admits that no major project had been implemented.

Even the pedestrian subway that was to be built then at Gandhipuram was shelved and a foot-over bridge came up. But, very few people use it now and the Corporation plans a subway again.

Narrow bridge

As for co-ordination with other agencies for better infrastructure, Mr. Ramesh says the Corporation should have actively pursued the widening of the Hope College bridge even though it came under the purview of the railways and the highways. As this area is very much within the Corporation limits, the agony the narrow bridge causes to road-users should have been taken up more aggressively by the Corporation.

S. Natarajan of Saibaba Colony laments the condition of the roads and says the number of accidents and grievous injuries is phenomenal. "The civic body has to respond promptly to genuine complaints and meet basic requirements such as good roads and sanitation," he says.

Taking a more political view, Mr. Murugan says no development happened during the last five years with an All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) member as the Mayor.

Reacting to this, AIADMK sources point out that only recently the Corporation embarked on implementing an infrastructure scheme for more Rs. 1,000 crore under the Central Government's Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. The project will bring all-round development to the city and the credit goes to those who headed the council over the last five years.

On sanitation, Mr. Ramesh, an adminstrator in a corporate hospital, says that just as the bio-medical waste management disposal project for hospitals, a scheme for the disposal of municipal solid waste is also necessary. Stringent action must be taken against those who dump garbage in the open. They must be involved in keeping the city clean.

On the menace of open drainage and the delay in the implementation of the underground drainage scheme, no one wants to take the blame and there is no political criticism as well.

High maintenance cost

Irrespective of party affiliations, the scheme had been opposed by a section of the councillors on grounds of high maintenance charges to be collected from the public.

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