Even as the city Corporation authorities deny any responsibility for a recent suicide attempt by councillor C.S. Sathyabhama, her protest has started yielding results. Work on eight major interior roads in her ward, Athanikkal, has started.
For more than four years, the renovation of these roads had been pending following an alleged rift between the councillor and the Corporation authorities, including the Mayor.
Meanwhile, Corporation officials claim the speedy start of renovation has nothing to do with the differences between the Mayor and the councillor.
“It is hard to believe that the city Corporation has finally understood the need of the people who had been pleading for the renovation of the roads for the past four years,” a resident of Athanikkal said. The one-and-a-half-kilometre Athanikkal-Parammal road had been neglected, and the local people had strongly protested against the councillor and the Mayor, he said.
A residents’ association at Athanikkal had boycotted the programmes of the councillor and the collective anniversary celebrations of the residents’ associations.
They had alleged that the councillor’s negligence paved the way for the delay in road repairs.
“The Communist and the Congress parties had taken it up as a political issue for campaigns by projecting their own reasons for the delay in the road work. But, the people in the region were only concerned with finding a solution to the damaged road,” Muraleedharan, a resident, said.
‘Only repairs’Ms. Sathyabhama said the renovation was not carried out properly for several years, though minor repairs were done occasionally. “For completing the project within three months, the Corporation will invest Rs.18 lakh,” she said.
However, the renovation of the main road that led to her protest against the Mayor was yet to be considered for repairs, she said.
“The project is entangled in a legal battle, and the work will begin only after the legal settlement,” Ms. Sathyabhama said.
