Soon 13 wards of Madurai Corporation under Tirupparankundram Assembly constituency would have fresh layer of roads before the constituency goes for the by-polls.
Forty-eight works of laying new layer of roads will be taken up in three wards on an outlay of Rs. 5 crore — out of Rs. 25 crore earmarked for re-laying 63.39 km of roads in the entire city (100 wards). The works would be taken up under two components.
The first component would be taken up under Infra Gap Filling scheme 2016-17 on an outlay of Rs. 20 crore with a subsidy of Rs. 10 crore and contribution of the Corporation of the remaining Rs. 10 crore to re-lay 49.11 km of road for the entire city.
The second component is of Rs. 5 crore to be spent by Madurai Corporation for re-laying 14.28 km of roads.
Two resolutions to this effect were passed at an emergency council meeting here on Wednesday. It was proposed to re-lay roads dug for underground drainage works, drinking water projects and by private telecom companies, besides roads in areas annexed to the civic body and roads that were not re-laid in the past five years.
Zonal Chairman K. Rajapandian questioned the rationale behind poor allocation of funds for road repair works in his zone and wanted the Mayor in charge K. Thiraviam to equally distribute funds for all the four zones. But the Mayor said, “We received instructions to allocate Rs. 10 crore for by-election,” referring to the Tirupparankundram Assembly constituency. The seat fell vacant after the MLA elect, S.M. Seenivel, passed away immediately after the May election.
Later, speaking at the meeting, S. Muniyandi, chairman of Standing Committee on Health, who represents Avaniapuram, thanked the Mayor for allocating Rs. 1.25 crore for his ward 94. His ward received the highest number of works – 11- out of the 37 works. Tirupparakundram Assembly constituency had 38 other panchayats under Tirupparankundram panchayat union, said Mr. Muniyandi. Few members complained about lack of adequate spare parts for repairing borewells and motor pumps.
Kannagi Baskaran of the ruling party said the Corporation godown for spare parts had nothing but scrap. Communist Party of India (Marxist) member M. Chellam said two borewells remained dysfunctional for lack of spare parts for months. Corporation Commissioner Sandeep Nanduri instructed officials to keep spare parts adequately stocked to attend to repairs immediately.
Zonal Chairperson K. Shanmugavalli complained that never before she had seen so much of underground sewage overflowing. She wanted the officials to attend to the problems immediately. Ms. Chellam said the overflowing sewage led to contamination of drinking water. The Commissioner said that on completion of remaining underground drainage work, the problem would not recur.
