In the past eight or nine months, since the new Council was constituted, the Coimbatore Corporation has made rapid progress in both the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission schemes, says Mayor S.M. Velusamy
This is one of the achievements of the AIADMK-led Council, he says and to buttress his claim cites the figures: since the time the Corporation began the work – sometime in 2007 – till the last Council was dissolved, it had built storm water drain for only 158 km.
The present civic body administration has built 123.85 km within nine months, though. Similarly, the previous administration managed to lay underground pipelines for only 102.8 km.
The present, AIADMK Council has, however, laid pipelines for over 260 km.
The Corporation so far had spent Rs. 43 core on storm water drain and Rs. 281.85 crore on underground drainage.
The short-term goal of the civic body is to close the trenches or pits dug for laying pipelines and level the road so that the city’s residents are troubled to the minimum possible extent during the rain.
It was with this objective that the Corporation terminated the UGD work being executed by TVRCPL-HNPEPL, the Hyderabad-based contractor whose work progressed at a “sluggish” pace.A Coimbatore court had disposed of the petition the contractor had filed against the Corporation for terminating the contract.
Mr. Velusamy says that the contractor-company will forfeit its Rs. 2.4 crore deposit with the Corporation, not get cheque worth Rs. 2.94 crore for the work completed and also pay for the excess expenditure the Corporation will incur when it re-tenders the work as per the revised estimates.
As for the glitches in constructing the sewage treatment plant at Nanjundapuram and acquiring land for transit station in Ondipudur, the Corporation has made some progress. It will start the works and complete them at the earliest.
