Demand for a by-pass to decongest Coimbatore, roads of international standards, pavement development works to ensure safety of pedestrians and many such announcements were the highlights of the Corporation Budget for 2014-15.
But the Budget was silent on the scheme roads the Mayor, S.M. Velusamy, had announced in the previous budgets and elsewhere. Soon after assuming office in 2011, he had said that the Corporation would take up at least one scheme road a year a zone to decongest traffic bottlenecks and improve mobility.
If the Mayor had kept his promise, the city should have had at least 15 schemes roads by now. But everything remains on paper. Even the much touted Perur Road – Thadagam Road link road is yet to take off.
Sources in the civic body said that work progressed at snail’s pace as far as the scheme roads project went. The Corporation did not yet have the land in its possession to kick-start the project. Only if it had the land, it would be able to float tenders, pick the lowest bidder and then execute the work.
At the rate at which the work was progressing, the present administration would not be able to complete even one scheme road by 2016, when the present Council’s term expires.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam councillors pointed out that the Corporation administration had not taken steps to implement the announcements the Mayor made: in the 2013-14 Budget speech he had said that the Corporation would complete 11 important scheme roads. A year earlier he had said that the Corporation would take up 170 scheme road projects in a phased manner.
Rather than concentrating on new schemes, the Corporation should concentrate on schemes that are pending, especially the scheme road projects, they said.
Officials in the civic body said that there were a few bureaucratic hurdles that they were trying to overcome.
