Plagued by infrastructure inadequacies on one side and mounting pressure caused by increasing tourism on the other, Udhagamandalam is all set to see the battle of ballots with Congress making a bid to wrest the seat from the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).
Udhagamandalam, a most sought after hill station by domestic and international tourists, is reeling under various infrastructure inadequacies and people in the hills have started migrating to the plains for the sake of higher education and healthcare. Continued neglect in terms of infrastructure by the successive governments has resulted in the Queen of Hills loosing her sheen.
Since 1957, the constituency has returned Congress nominees eight times, nominee of the Swatandra party once besides giving the AIADMK and DMK a chance twice each. In 2011, the constituency returned sitting MLA M. Budhichandran who was inducted into the cabinet for a brief period.
Fund-starved Udhagamandalam Municipality had not been able to make any progress in terms of infrastructure and the constituency’s demographic profile includes a mixture of Badagas, Christians, Keralites, Kannadigas and Muslims.
Ban on issue of patta on one side and rampant building rule violations on the other are the major issues that the electorate hold against the successive ruling parties. Tourism, horticulture and plantations remain the key economic factors for this hill-station.
K.A. Bhojan, a resident of Udhagamandalam for the last 26 years, says that there is a burgeoning vehicular population, but the town roads remain very narrow without any adequate parking space resulting in congestion becoming the order of the day. The town had been growing vertically and horizontal growth was very minimum, he added.
Similarly, the water supply schemes that the Municipality depends are proving to be grossly inadequate. In the absence of a strong political leadership in the district, despite change of governments, MLA’s were not able to get sanctions for any foresighted projects taking into account the long term requirements. Many of the projects were envisaged and implemented by the British.
With cup of woes overflowing, Dharmalingam Venugopal of Nilgiris Documentation Centre has entered the fray taking on the Dravidian majors, national and regional party nominees.
His campaign remains very simple “Vote for Ooty”. Mr. Venugopal’s campaign also focuses on renaming Udhagamandalam as Ooty as it is popularly known to the rest of the world.
He pointed out that the hill district needs a lot of infrastructure as it attracted close to 25 lakh tourists an year and more than 50 per cent of them from Southern States and the rest from all over India and from abroad. He also calls for reasonable price for tea and for the vegetables that are grown here such as carrot, cauliflower, potato and broccoli.
Political leaders and top bureaucrats, who come to Udhagamandalam for vacations, promise to do something for betterment of the town but seldom remember that on their return from vacation, says a leading hotels manager on condition of anonymity. The hill district capital is yet to get an engineering college and the trauma care facilities at Government Hospital at Udhagamandalam requires a lot of improvement.
Interestingly, the constituency which is a sought after spot for film shooting has only three theatres and promises of the past namely introduction of rope car and many other infrastructure to aid tourism is yet to translate into reality on the ground, Mr. Bhojan added.
There is no scientific study or a permanent solution to the problem of land slips which at some times cuts off the connectivity for the district with the plains.
The much talked about proposal for a third route to the Nilgiris (besides the one via Kotagiri and the other via Coonoor) has not seen the light of the day owing to issues of environment clearance.
Promising to resolve all or at least many of the issues, the candidates locking horns are R. Ganesh of the Indian National Congress (INC) D. Vinodh of AIADMK, K. King Narcissus of DMDK and J. Raman of BJP.
