Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Citizens' wish list for the city

Special Correspondent

COIMBATORE: As the campaign for the local body elections gets into the final stretch this week, a wish list for the city seems to emerge from the interface citizens' groups have organised. Good roads, streamlining drinking water supply, adequate streetlights and sanitation constitute the demand for basic amenities.

While these are the major demands from the voters, there is a special focus on overall infrastructure improvement to make the city more liveable. There is a fervent call for planned development so that the current pace of rise in buildings and vehicle population does not render the roads inadequate.

As this call is being made on the one hand, citizens' groups stress the need for 100 per cent voting for the civic polls. Even those who had secured eight per cent to 10 per cent votes had won because of the low voter turnout. This situation should change, the vice-presidents of Residents Awareness Association of Coimbatore (RAAC), Vanita Mohan and G. Soundararajan, have said in a release.

Ms. Mohan is also Managing Trustee of Siruthuli, a public initiative to conserve water resources. The organisation has joined hands with others such as Kural, RAAC, Karam and Citizens' Voice Club to bring voters and candidates face-to-face.

Basic amenities

They have brought out a 10-point charter of demands that include basic amenities such as drinking water, drainage, streetlights and roads without potholes and garbage. The city needs an integrated solid waste management programme so that the problem of garbage accumulation, such as the one at the compost yard in Vellalore, does not recur.

The release points out that the city needs good roads for free movement of vehicles and also pavements for pedestrians to walk without the risk of accidents. It also calls for proper maintenance of Corporation schools, hospitals, parks, public toilets and burial grounds.

The organisations also want the encroachments along River Noyyal and in the tanks to be removed. The Corporation should ensure that sewage is not let into the water resources.

Prominent demand

Ring roads and radial roads as envisaged in the master plan of 1994 should be implemented. A prominent demand is the constitution of a Coimbatore Metropolitan Development Authority on the lines of the one for Chennai city. This is a demand that has been voiced at every public forum convened to discuss the city's development.

Construction of high-rise buildings should be permitted only along roads that were very wide and with pavements for pedestrians and also adequate space for parking vehicles. The building rules should also be re-drafted to match the requirement of a growing city.

Residents are now confronting the candidates with these demands at the face-to-face. Meetings for residents and candidates of four wards were held on Saturday and Sunday. One more has been planned for October 10 at Sowripalayam.

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