Tiruchi Corporation has constituted ward-level committees, headed by the respective councillors, to take forward the city beautification efforts and also to plan, implement, and oversee sanitation and development works in the wards concerned.
Best performing ward committees would be rewarded with gold coins in recognition of their services, Corporation Commissioner V.P.Thandapani has announced.
Explaining the rationale behind the initiative, Mr.Thandapani told The Hindu that the initiative was aimed at encouraging and ensuring the participation of residents’ welfare associations and voluntary organisations of the localities in the development activities in the respective wards. Each committee would have two members representing such organisations.
Nodal officer
A nodal officer would be appointed for each of the 65 ward committees. They would also include a Corporation officer or engineer, the bill collector, and sanitary supervisors of the respective wards.
The committees would meet regularly, collect details, assess the requirements of the respective wards, and plan for its betterment.
Ensuring sanitation and hygiene, creation of small parks, ensuring proper maintenance of street lights and other civic services would also come under the ambit of the committees.
Grievances at the ward level could also be conveyed to the committees.
The committees could even hire a few individuals for sanitation initiatives such as door-to-door collection of solid waste and the Corporation would contribute a portion of expenses incurred towards this.
Mr.Thandapani chaired the first consultative committee meeting with the nodal officers of the committees on Saturday and briefed them about the salient features of the initiative and the roles defined for the officers.
City Engineer R.Chandran, City Health Officer (in-charge) N.Rajeswari, assistant commissioners and the nodal officers attended the meeting.
