Coimbatore Corporation Councillors often demand roads, street lights, improvement in water supply or bins in their locality for residents to dump garbage. But Ward 84 Councillor A. Chandran has demanded an engineer for his ward.
He had asked Mayor S.M. Velusamy and Commissioner G. Latha that high on the priority list of his ward’s needs was the engineer because without him or her it was impossible to get things done in his ward.
Sources said that the ward did not have a dedicated engineer as other wards.
The Assistant Executive Engineer in-charge of the Central Zone was the engineer concerned for the ward and the absence of an engineer exclusively for the ward affected the execution of development works because it was the engineer who prepared estimates for works to be executed, supervised works in progress and oversaw development works. The sources said that the impact of the absence of an engineer for the past two years could be seen in Kempatty Colony where a few roads had not seen an asphalt topping for the past 15 years.
The Kari Ravuthar Street and Kempatty Colony Seventh Street were just a couple among the many roads that needed attention.
Likewise, there was a well in the area that washer men used for washing clothes.
No water
The well had been without water for long and the Councillor had demanded a borewell, the sources said and added that the demand had been kept pending because of the absence of an engineer.
There was an urgent need to attend to the ward because it was thickly populated and the residents included at least a few thousand Corporation conservancy workers.
The Corporation officials said that the ward did have an engineer and that the engineer held the additional charge as the assistant executive engineer for the Central Zone. And it was not the other way round.
They said that the ward did not need new development works as it had the entire basic infrastructure and that the Corporation needed to only maintain the existing service like clearing blockages in the underground drainage line.
They added there was no deficiency in service in Kempatty Colony.
