Muthusamy Colony Fifth Street resident are worried about a development work the Coimbatore Corporation has taken up. The civic body is renovating the storm water drain on the street, which is off Perur Road, near Selvapuram.
On Sunday morning, the contractor the corporation had engaged for the work was pouring concrete over the existing drain - the objective was to raise the height. But in the process, the width of the drain has reduced.
J. Sridhar, a resident, said that the width of the drain had come down so much that the conservancy workers would find it difficult to even dip their cleaning stick to pull out silt. The new drain would no serve no purpose for the residents but would only add to their woes.
T.V. Gopi, also a resident, said the objective behind the corporation taking up the work seemed to be not the residents’ welfare.
The contractor was just pouring the concrete over the existing structure without chipping off the surface or taking steps to maintain the width. This was nothing but pouring money into the drain.
Sources in the corporation said the work was an extension of the drain construction work taken up in the nearby Lala Garden at ₹27 lakh. In Muthusamy Colony, the local body was only renovating the drain with whatever it had saved in the Lala Garden work.
As for the width, the sources said that they would carry out a field inspection to ensure that the work taken up met the objective - facilitate flow of sewage/rain water, and ensure that money was not wasted.
Senior officials promised to inspect the place at the earliest.
