Hopes of residents of Ward 54, 55 and 56 of the Coimbatore Corporation remain dashed, at least for now. They were hoping that the latest delimitation exercise the Corporation has undertaken will undo the anomalies done during the last exercise.
The residents' grouse is that development works have been affected and there is no easy access to the councillor because a few streets in a couple of localities and a few houses on two or three streets come under in two or three wards instead of just one.
Councillors representing Ward 54 – M. Mehruneesa, Ward 55 – A. Subbulakshmi and Ward 56 – N. Chinnadurai raised the very issue at Monday's Corporation Council meeting, where the subject of discussion was delimitation.
The two woman councillors said they were unable to efficiently carry out development works because one half of a locality was in one ward and the other half in another ward.
And, worse, one half of a street was in a ward and the other in another ward.
Ms. Subbulakshmi says residents of Indira Nagar and Amul Nagar are the worst affected and points to the storm water drainage work in progress to underscore her point.
“The drainage work in progress is supposed to be executed in my ward. But the work is now in progress in Ward 54 and also Ward 56 because the terrain's slope is such that without carrying out the work in the two wards it is impossible to take up work in my ward.”
The civic body, she says, is executing the work with funds sanctioned for her ward.
In installation of street lights too there was a similar problem. Though the Councillor wanted lights for streets falling under her ward, the lights were shared among all the three wards.
For the residents, the problem is of a different kind. People of the same street or locality, because of the way the wards have been formed, fall under two different corporation zones. Ward 54 comes under the South Zone, whereas Wards 55 and 56 form part of the West Zone.
That is not all. Access to the councillor itself is a problem. Shivarama Gupta, a resident of Ward 54, says meeting the councillor to get her signature for old age pension or other documents is a problem because she says at Karumbukkadai, near Athupalam, far away from the area, which is in Selvapuram.
The problem is the same for the Councillor Ms. Mehruneesa as well. Moving within the ward will be easy if it is contiguous but here it is difficult.
“The three or four streets in Indira Nagar and Amul Nagar are so far away that she is not able to carry out development works,” she rues.
The residents also feel that there is a disparity in development work. “Residents of Ward 55 have bore well water connection. But we do not have. While carrying out the development work, the Councillor managed to extend a line to our area,” rues B. Prabhakaran, a resident of Ward 54. The residents and the Councillors want the Corporation to rectify the “mistake” and bring the area under a ward, so that both the people and the councillors are happy.
Corporation Commissioner T.K. Ponnusamy told them at the Council meeting that he would forward their grievance to the State Government but could not do much because the Government had asked him not to split a ward.
