Eight ward members of Chennasamuthiram panchayat of Walajapet taluk have submitted their resignation to the district administration as no essential civic work was taken up in the last seven months.
S. Gangadharan, eighth ward member of the panchayat, said seven months ago, the government had removed the cheque-issuing power of the panchayat president E. Parasuraman due to irregularities.
“Since then, we have been unable to take up any work to fulfil basic needs of the villagers. The president has washed his hands off the issue and announced through tom-tom that there is nothing he can do about it,” he said.
Nine wards
Home to nearly 2,000 families, the Chennasamuthiram panchayat has nine wards. The ward members said they have been approaching the Walajapet block development office and district administration over the last seven months as they were unable to carry out any civic works.
“The panchayat is facing problems in supply of drinking water and most of the street lights are not functioning.
So far, we have managed the problems to an extent using our money for things such as repairing motors for water supply. But now, things have gone beyond our capacity to pool in funds,” he added.
With no reply from officials, eight ward members of the panchayat came forward to resign from their posts.
Mr. Gangadharan along with four other ward members came to the Collectorate on Monday during the public grievance redressal day meeting.
“Our demand is that the officials should issue cheques so that we can take up civic works in the panchayat. We submitted our resignation to the Collector.
However, officials added that this was not the procedure to resign and assured to look into our problem,” he added.
As no essential civic work was taken up in the last seven months
