A decade ago, a high-level committee mooted the proposal of creating two new Corporations, headquartered in Avadi and Tambaram. This proposal is still mired in uncertainty.
Residents of localities, covered by big municipalities — including Pallavaram and Tambaram on the south and Avadi and Poonamallee on the west — think that if these corporations had already formed, living conditions in many neighbourhoods in these regions would have improved.
They would have received basic facilities such as underground drainage system, piped water supply by Chennai Metrowater, better bitumen-topped roads, LED lights and a modern garbage disposal system.
“Having a new Corporation would mean more funds would be made available for the development of areas that come under it,” says Giri Ravanan, secretary, Venketachalam Nagar Residents Welfare Association in Thirumullaivoyal.
At present, big municipalities and town panchayats located on the fringes of Chennai — including Avadi, Tambaram, Poonamallee, Pallavaram and Kundrathur — still struggle to provide basic facilities to its residents.
For example, underground drainage projects in three municipalities — Avadi, Tambaram and Poonamallee — have been dragging on for many years, with residents in these areas still not clear about when these multi-crore projects would be commissioned.
According to municipal officials, contractual problems and lack of expertise in handling such mega sewage projects, including construction and maintenance of sewage treatment plants, are the reasons for the delay in the early commissioning of these projects.
Water supply is another problem faced by residents in these local bodies as Chennai Metrowater has restricted its supply to areas within Greater Chennai Corporation limits, with gradual expansion of its services to the areas added to the Corporation, since 2011.
As a result, many of these local bodies, which include Tambaram, Avadi, Pallavaram and Kundrathur, rely on traditional ways of sourcing water, which include making use of public wells and overhead tanks (OHTs) maintained by local bodies.
With depletion of water source points, residents in these areas get water supply only once a week.
Likewise, roads, including arterial stretches, in these local bodies, which run to several kilometres, have not been laid for many years, mainly due to lack of funds.
In fact, the conventional sodium vapour streetlights too are poorly maintained as many of the fittings get damaged often.
An effort at door-to-door garbage collection is made but source generation is being done poorly. Worse still, garbage collected from households and commercial establishments are dumped near waterbodies.
With the Madras High Court directing the State Election Commission to conduct local body elections in the State before May 15 this year, residents in these areas are hopeful that the decade-old proposal to form a new Corporation will be revived by the State government.
