The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Municipal councillors stage walkout

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Friday, May 30, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Municipal councillors stage walkout

Special Correspondent

— Photo: A.Muralitharan

PROTEST: Some of the councillors of Tambaram Municipality who walked out of its council meeting on Thursday.

TAMBARAM: A majority of councillors of Tambaram Municipality walked out of a routine council meeting on Friday forcing the meeting to be put off.

A total of 19 councillors belonging to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and some belonging to the Congress and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam too walked out of the meeting in protest, charging that the local body’s administrative machinery was crumbling and that works pertaining to provision of civic amenities had come to a grinding halt.

Soon after the meeting began, the councillors said that residents in many pockets of Tambaram were fuming over the erratic supply of Palar water, poor collection and disposal of garbage and pathetic condition of streetlights. Nagoor Gani, AIADMK councillor of Ward No. 7, walked out in protest against the failure of the local body to build a maternity hospital in West Tambaram.

V.N. Venu, Congress councillor from Ward No. 29, said the elected representatives were under pressure from the residents as no development work was being implemented anywhere. Sometime later, A. Janakiraman, DMK councillor from Ward. No. 20 and former Municipal Chairman, said the poor state of amenities and the pace of development works was causing severe resentment among the residents.

Mr. Janakiraman, who is leader of DMK in the council, said water supply had become very poor in the recent times. Privatisation of streetlight maintenance and disposal of garbage too had not delivered the expected results, he said and walked out along with the rest of the DMK councillors.

Reacting to the charges, municipal chairman E. Mani said that owing to gross mismatch in the schedule of rates and prevailing market rates of construction material, most contractors hesitated to come forward to take up works pertaining to construction of buildings and other amenities. Water supply was affected for some days owing to shifting of utilities in connection with the ongoing work on the road overbridge at Tambaram. Further, pilferage from the main pipelines transporting Palar water had reduced the supply and these problems were attended to.

He refuted the charges that no development work was carried out anywhere in the local body.

He said that so far works to the tune of Rs. 22 crore were sanctioned to all wards of the municipality, irrespective of which party the elected representative belonged to. The local body administration was attaching top importance to representations and grievances from both the councillors and the residents, he said.

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