The Corporation council meeting that was held here on Wednesday was dominated by protests from the councillors against the ‘lethargic attitude' of the administration in dealing with the acute drinking water shortage experienced in the city.
Staging a walkout, CPI (M) and CPI councillors alleged that the administration did not display foresight in addressing the drinking water scarcity before the summer started taking its toll.
CPI councillor P.R. Natarajan said that though only 48 mld (million litres per day) of water was supplied through the existing three water schemes to the city dwellers, no effective step was being taken by the Corporation officials to get the proposed fourth drinking water commissioned at the earliest.
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“It is also a matter of anxiety for the public that the State Government did not make any allocation towards the fourth drinking water scheme in the current budget.
“Adding to the woes, huge fiscal deficits in the Corporation budgets during the last few years make the administration incapable of executing any improvement in the drinking water supply on their own,” he added.
According to Mr. Natarajan, the drinking water scarcity will become much worse once the two municipalities and eight village panchayats were merged with the Corporation next year.
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Similar concern was raised by AIADMK councillors too.
They were of the opinion that despite the growth of city, no major budgetary allocation was made by the State Government in the last few years to improve the drinking water supply as well as to improve road infrastructure.
MDMK councilors led by S. Sivabalan too staged a walkout expressing their displeasure over the periodic power supply failure in many parts of the city apart from the scheduled load shedding.