The Coimbatore Corporation will construct storm water drains at Rs.180 crore under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.
As much as 50 per cent of the cost will be met through a grant from the Central Government and the Corporation would spend 30 per cent from its funds.
The State Government would provide the balance 20 per cent in the form of an interest-free loan, the Corporation told the Council on Wednesday while seeking its approval for the bids submitted by private firms for implementing the project.
Corporation Commissioner Anshul Mishra said the civic body would ensure quality in the implementation of the proposed scheme, when councillors alleged lack of quality in the ongoing underground drainage works.
Leader of the Opposition and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) member V.N. Udayakumar expressed dissatisfaction over the e-tender system. It could be legally right from the view of the Commissioner, but did not appear practical at the ground level, he contended.
Mr. Udayakumar alleged that the firm that bagged the contract for the Rs.377-crore underground drainage scheme was engaging sub-contractors to implement it. This affected the quality of work.
Mr. Mishra asserted there was no sub-contractor system. If companies engaged sub-contractors, they could be blacklisted.
The Commissioner also contested the councillor’s claim that people were dissatisfied with the quality of work. “Only 10 per cent of the complaints relate to quality. The rest are about the inconvenience caused by the digging of the roads,” he said.
“We are closely monitoring the works and the same level of vigil will be maintained in the storm water drainage project also. We have third party certification to ensure quality. I suggest that the Council’s Standing Committee on Works can also monitor the implementation,” he said.
Flu surveillance
Councillors wanted the health department of the civic body to carry out tight surveillance across the city to detect A (H1N1) influenza cases.
Pointing out that the Corporation had 20 health centres, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) member P. Rajkumar wanted to know whether the health department would take up screening and treatment.
Independent member S. Velmurugan called for door-to-door vaccination to immunise people against the flu-causing viral strain.
Congress member V.K.S.K. Senthilkumar wanted to know the status of the project for constructing multi-level parking lots at some locations in the city, including Cross-Cut Road.
Mayor R. Venkatachalam said a project report had been sent to the State Government for approval.
South Zone Chairman P. Pynthamil’s suggested a corpus that could, in turn, enable the Corporation to offer free of cost cremation at its electric crematoria.
Mr. Pari said a corpus could be created by collecting Rs.500 on each of the 1.6 lakh domestic Property Tax assessment and Rs.500 on each of the 25,000 commercial ones.
Walkout
Members of the AIADMK, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India and some other parties staged a walkout from the Council alleging discrimination in the application of Council rules while raising issues.
Both the DMK and AIADMK accused each other’s members of disrupting the Council proceedings.
