The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Municipality in need of funds

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 05, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Municipality in need of funds

S. Sundar

To restore roads in Virudhunagar

— Photo: G. Moorthy.

Karthik Karikolraj.

VIRUDHUNAGAR: Is the underground drainage project from Virudhunagar town a boon or bane? Though the around Rs. 23-crore project will, to a large extent, take care of the sanitary condition in the town of many narrow lanes, its execution has caused extensive damage to the roads.

Unlike many urban local bodies, Virudhunagar boasted of concrete roads that dated back to Kamaraj period. The high quality roads did not bother the exchequer of the local body in periodical maintenance and re-laying for nearly 30 years.

But now on, the municipal administration will face an uphill task of restoring the dug up roads with quality tar topping. Unfortunately, for the over 80-km of road being dug up, a negligible amount of money has been allotted for restoration. “Only around Rs. 4 crore has been allotted from the total project cost for road restoration,” said the Municipal Chairperson, Karthik Karikolraj.

“We have faced much public wrath over the excavated road that remains unmotorable. The work that began in January 2007 was scheduled for completion in June 2008. But it seems it will go on for many more months and we do not know how we are going to face the people,” she said.

Stating that the town had loose clay soil all over, Ms. Karthik said that laying of new roads, if they were not concrete ones, would mean re-laying of black topping for more than a couple times before getting set.

She said that the financial position of the local body was not so sound to spare huge funds for laying roads. It had already raised a huge loan for the underground drainage project. “We have sought Rs. 21 crore from the State Government for this purpose. Both the Ministers from the district have promised to get us the necessary funds,” she said.

Pointing out that the State Government had recently announced a package to restore roads for many local bodies in the State, the Chairperson said that she would urge the Local Administration Minister, M.K. Stalin, who is visiting the town on Friday, to include Virudhunagar also in it.

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

Tamil Nadu