Mayor Tony Chammany has come under fire from the Left Democratic Front for what it called the stalemate in Kochi’s infrastructure development.
Sign of failure
A statement issued by the LDF Parliamentary Party here disapproved of the Mayor’s remarks on Friday that courts should intervene to make funds available for building the Pachalam railway overbridge.
These remarks are an indication of the failure of the Corporation of Cochin, the statement said as it asked the Mayor to step down.
The Mayor had earlier in the Corporation Council praised the State government to the skies for being lavish with funds for acquiring land for road development works in the city. However, Mr. Chammany had now taken a U-turn on the issue, the statement said.
It claimed that the former LDF government under the Chief Ministership of V.S. Achuthanandan had agreed to provide Rs.100 crore for building the Pachalam railway overbridge.
It demanded that the Mayor should acknowledge the efforts made by the LDF government in improving the facilities in the city. The LDF government had prepared detailed project reports for the Pachalam, Ponnurunny and Atlantis overbridges and had got these projects approved under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.
The statement also raised the question as to what the Mayor was doing over the past three years about these projects because he had said on Friday that the Pachalam overbridge could not now be brought under the JNNURM.
The parliamentary party also blamed the State government for the standstill on development of the city infrastructure.
