Best Corporation Award: and the credit goes to…?

The urgent meeting of the Coimbatore Corporation council on Thursday witnessed heated exchanges between the members of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) when the latter claimed that many of the schemes initiated during its regime resulted in Coimbatore bagging the Best Corporation Award.

When the meeting began, Mayor S.M. Velusamy told the council that the Corporation had excelled in all the 16 parameters to bag the award among the 10 Corporations in the State.

During the zero hour, the AIADMK members lauded the civic body, the Mayor and the Chief Minister for steering Coimbatore on a progressive path. At that point, DMK councillor Meena Loganathan said the schemes that won the award for the Corporation were initiated during the DMK period and her party had a role to play in the civic body bagging the award.

The Mayor said that it was not a question of who was responsible for the award and said that the member was also part of the council that bagged the award. He told the member not to politicise the achievement.

When another DMK member Nandakumar also seconded the opinion of Meena Loganathan, the Mayor said that the schemes were conceptualised during the previous AIADMK regime and the DMK regime initiated the schemes during its period. He accused the DMK of dragging the implementation of schemes. This was objected to by Mr.Nandakumar.

Later, resolutions regarding fixation of rent for shops in commercial complexes and community halls were taken up. When Ms. Meena Loganathan objected to fixation of rent for community halls, the Mayor asked the member of the particular ward to speak.

Objecting to this, Ms. Meena Loganathan staged a walk out. This resulted in the Mayor telling the council that the members should obtain prior permission from the chair before making a point. Later, the Mayor ordered for reduction of rent for community halls by Rs.500. As many as 28 subjects pertaining to Finance and Taxation Committee relating to fixation of rentals for shops and community halls were passed. .