Problem on one hand and solution on the other, is how best the city’s traffic situation can be described.
The problem is that of road users suffering traffic jams day in and out almost across the city, particularly during peak hours in mornings and evenings. The solution is more roads in the city that will serve as alternative routes to help people reach their destinations.
But the civic body does not seem to keen on bringing the hands together, if one looks at the efforts it has taken in the past few years to build the alternative routes.
The Corporation should have provided the alternative routes by developing scheme roads but it has not, complains S.P. Thiyagarajan, a civic activist. The Corporation that has access to the infrastructure and amenities fund that builders pay to the Local Planning Authority has hardly utilised the money in any meaningful way, he says referring to the reply the Authority has furnished to an RTI applicant.
In its reply to the applicant, S. Karunanidhi of Rajeshwari Nagar, the LPA has said that it has ₹43.23 crore under the infrastructure and amenities fund and in the past eight years, the Corporation has utilised the fund only twice.
The civic body first used ₹ 13.25 crore to build two scheme roads in 2010 – in the run-up to the World Classical Tamil Conference and second, a few months ago, when it used around ₹ 50 lakh to develop a road in Vadavalli.
If the Corporation had effectively used the funds in the last eight years to provide the city's residents with alternative routes, it would had prevented the deterioration of the city's traffic condition, he adds.
Mr. Thiyagarajan says the traffic jam that people face every day on the narrow Sowripalayam Road is an instance of the Corporation's failure.
The Corporation has a proposal to widen the 20-foot congested stretch on the Road to 40 feet by acquiring land. To acquire the land it could have used the infrastructure and amenities fund but it has not and the result is for every body to see.
In the Sowripalayam Road case and several such instances where land acquisition is involved, the civic body usually cites lack of money but it cannot do so, what with the fund remaining underutilised.
A senior Corporation official, on condition of anonymity, says that the civic body did make a couple of attempts to get the fund but it did not succeed.
