In the 2012-13 Corporation Budget, Mayor S.M. Velusamy had said that the Corporation would construct a bridge across River Noyyal at Puttuvikki. The Corporation had allotted Rs. 2.20 crore for the construction of the bridge.
A year has gone by without any progress. The only development was that the Mayor presented the Corporation Budget for 2013-14. And he made a few more budgetary announcements.
Sources in the corporation said that the corporation floated tenders in October 2012, January 2013, and for the last time in May 2013. But nothing materialised.
On one of the three occasions there was only one contractor who had submitted quotations. Even as the corporation went about floating tenders, it decided that it would widen and improve the road from Sundarapuram to Puttuvikki for around Rs. 12 crore, the two projects could be combined to one and that a common tender be floated.
To finance the road, the corporation had planned to seek funds from the Local Planning Authority. It had written to the District Collector, M. Karunagaran, who is the Chairman of LPA, and the State Government too.
But nothing much seemed to have happened after the decision to combine the road project with that of the bridge. The sources said that the corporation had taken up the project with the Commissioner for Municipal Administration for an early sanction and that a Government Order in this regard was expected in the next few days. They said that once the Government approved the proposal, the corporation would float tender for the project and ensure an early completion so that people were not solely dependent on Athupalam to go to Ukkadam, and Kuniamuthur.
Now many agree with the corporation’s view point, though. N.G. Prabhuram, a farmer and Kuniamuthur resident, said that even if the corporation were to construct the bridge at Puttuvikki, and widen the road from Sundarapuram, it would not serve any purpose.
In the present condition, people continued to use the causeway at Puttuvikki for about nine to 10 months a year. Only when the Noyyal waters flowed over the causeway did they go via Athupalam.
If the corporation’s idea was to decongest Athupalam and encourage the use of the sundarapuram-Puttuvikki road as an alternative way, the corporation should think of widening roads from Kuniamuthur to Puttuvikki so that people used the roads.
The roads from the Kuniamuthur Higher Secondary School, and the Old Kuniamuthur town to Puttuvikki, were in a bad shape and was being encroached upon. If the corporation repaired and widened the road, it would help people avoid Athupalam to reach Puttuvikki, proceed to Selvapuram, and from there go to Gandhipark, and R.S. Puram.
