The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : German aid for projects: draw up proposals, town panchayats told

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 19, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

German aid for projects: draw up proposals, town panchayats told

Special Correspondent

Bus stands, community halls, complexes can be established

Photo: K. Manikandan

Making plans: Commissioner of Town Panchayats K. Gopal and other officials at the video conference with Assistant Directors and Executive Officers of all districts and town panchayats, held in Chennai on Tuesday. —

CHENNAI: All 561 town panchayats in Tamil Nadu have been urged to identify and prepare proposals for remunerative projects to be implemented with Rs.100-crore financial assistance from Germany, K.Gopal, Commissioner of Town Panchayats, said on Tuesday.

Bus stands, community halls, shopping complexes and markets could be established under the scheme that is being funded by Kreditanstant Fur Wiederaufbau, he said, while addressing Assistant Directors and Executive Officers of all districts and town panchayats through a video conference from National Informatics Centre, Rajaji Bhavan, in Besant Nagar.

Once in place, these facilities would be able to generate revenue to supplement the income of these urban local bodies as it was the objective behind the German financial institution’s assistance scheme.

Water Supply

Mr. Gopal made it clear to town panchayat authorities that water supply had to be given top priority. “You have to ensure supply of 70 litres per person everyday and provide individual connections within a week from the date of application,” he said. If there are not enough sources, the town panchayats could create them the under Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme for Small and Medium Towns or under the Minimum Needs Programme, he said, adding that funds were no longer a constraint.

Drinking water had to be supplied only after chlorination and town panchayat staff had to coordinate with officials of Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board, which, he said, was not being done at present. The staff also need to coordinate with the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board to sort out issues relating to power supply problems.

Solid Water management

Another thrust area was handling and disposal of garbage. The “Solid Waste Management Vision Plan” of the Commissionerate of Town Panchayats envisaged that by 2010, only one-fourth of garbage would be generated in households compared to now. Encouraging people and motivating voluntary organisations, self-help groups and town panchayat staff were important to achieve this objective, he said.

Increasing tax collection, protection of waterbodies, rainwater harvesting structures and maintenance of burial grounds and stormwater drains also required a lot of importance. “Identify and create a registry of assets belonging to your town panchayats and initiate steps to remove encroachments,” Mr. Gopal remarked.

“Computerise records”

Urging executive officers to be more computer-savvy, he said records should be computerised for administrative convenience. The Commissionerate had designed COSMOS (Computerised Online Scheme Monitoring System) and through it, 17,000 works were being assessed and reviewed.

Mr. Gopal also reminded staff to be easily accessible to residents and asked them not to delay plan approval for buildings.

The video conference with officers in all the districts through the NICNET was made possible due to the installation of a Multi Point Conference Unit last week. Till now, bureaucrats from Chennai could interact only with three or four districts, officials at NIC said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu