It is more than 30 years since the special camp to give armed training to the cadre of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was organised by the Union government at Kumbarapatti Colony in Kolathur, about 65 km from Salem. The elderly people of this area recall the grandeur of the camp and close rapport the LTTE cadre maintained with the locals. To this day survive some of the memorials to the conduct of the camp in the early 1980s and the participation of some top LTTE leaders in it. Ponnamman, a senior LTTE leader, was the head of the Kolathur camp. A bus shelter named after him is still around in the village. ‘Thalapathi Ponnamman memorial bus shelter,’ with slogans hailing Tamil Eelam and the symbol of respect to the memory of the slain LTTE militant, is the major attraction. The Kumbarapatti Colony was then called ‘Puliyur’ (the village of the tigers).
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Journalists covering the Secretariat were in for a surprise on Thursday last as they did not find Chief Minister Jayalailthaa’s car, normally parked at the portico at the southern end of Fort St. George when she was in. Their surprise ended when the car carrying Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad arrived there about 12.30 p.m. This showed the importance of the visitor. Some journalists recalled a similar treatment accorded to Hillary Clinton, who, as U.S. Secretary of State, met the Chief Minister in July 2011.
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Officials of the Tiruchi Corporation have been at pains to explain that the civic body was selected for the Best Corporation Award, given away by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa during the Independence Day celebrations, only after a thorough assessment of its performance. Opposition councillors, at a Council meeting last week, scoffed at the award being given to the civic body, “given the poor amenities in the city.” A few even suggested that the Corporation was honoured just because Srirangam, the Chief Minister’s constituency, came under the civic body. Senior officials explained that the selection was based on a stringent evaluation of the performance of the urban local bodies on various parameters. The Corporation had performed well in solid waste management (despite a shortage of sanitary workers), drinking water supply, cleanliness and hygiene and financial management.
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Engineers of the Coimbatore Corporation and the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board have mixed feelings about S. Ganesh taking over as Corporation Commissioner. Corporation engineers believe Mr. Ganesh’s earlier stint as the Joint Managing Director of the TWAD Board will help the civic body resolve issues with the Board. They also believe that with his Board background, Mr. Ganesh will be able to sift the explanations offered by the Board. On the other hand, the Board engineers believe Mr. Ganesh will come to their rescue by supporting the organisation and will not have switched loyalties so soon. The Board executes a few projects for the Corporation and is in charge of a number of water supply schemes.
How Mr. Ganesh will act will be important because at meetings to review the schemes, the two sides have not always been in agreement. On a few occasions, the Corporation engineers were upset at their Board counterparts for the delay in execution or not working as per specifications.
Now, Corporation engineers believe that under the new Commissioner they need not always buy all that the Board engineers say as he will know the real picture.
The Board engineers say that having known the organisation from inside, Mr. Ganesh will only be sympathetic. How he will act is only a meeting away.
( Syed Muthahar Saqaf, T. Ramakrishnan, S. Ganesan and Karthik Madhavan )
