Irked over lack of announcement on integrated bus stand in the Corporation Budget 2015-16, councillors of the main Opposition, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), staged a walkout from the budget debate at the Corporation Council meeting here on Monday.
Terming the budget as a blank document, they criticised the budget as bunch of papers with old and pending proposals.
The councillors of Desiya Murpokku Dravidar Kazhagam (DMDK), Marumalarchi Dravidar Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), and the Congress party too severely criticised the budget. However, they did not join the DMK in staging a walkout.
Setting the tone for the discussion, M.Venkatraj (DMK) said the budget was bereft of any new initiative and many of the proposals were repetitions of earlier budgets. The budget makes no mention about the much-awaited integrated bus stand. It was painful the Corporation was not able to choose a location even after discussing the proposal for 18 years. It was first mooted at the time of upgradation of Tiruchi municipality into a Corporation, he said.
Muthu Selvam (DMK) said his party had been maintaining that Panjapur was the best location for setting up the integrated bus stand. A resolution was passed in the council in 2006. Political reasons should not prolong the project anymore, he said. Recollecting the announcement made in the last year’s budget on establishing a bus stand in Srirangam, he said it had remained only on paper. While no follow-up action was taken since then, the current budget doesn’t even make a mention of the proposal, he said. M.Mustafa (MDMK) said the budget was bereft of any new initiative and many of the works which found mention in last year’s budget had been repeated. The high deficit in the budget had fuelled the fear that the Corporation would hike taxes to meet the deficit, he said.
R.Hema (Congress) said the ruling AIADMK had presented a blank budget with no constructive announcements.
While pointing out the outdated website of the Tiruchi Corporation, K.Shankar, DMDK, said officials should take steps to update the website before taking steps to enforce online operations.
However, the budget came in for praise from the AIADMK members. Many of them, who took part in the debate, welcomed it. They said it had everything to meet the infrastructure and basic needs of the residents of Tiruchi. Party councillor, S.Baskar, said all five wards, which were brought under the Tiruchi Corporation recently, had received maximum attention during the last three years. The civic body had already initiated steps to implement a drinking water scheme at a cost of Rs.49.50 crore, he said.
Earlier, heated exchanges were witnessed between the AIADMK and the DMK members when the Deputy Mayor J. Srinivasan chose to sit in the treasury bench for taking part in the discussion. The DMK members criticised that it was unbecoming of a Deputy Mayor to stoop down from his position.
