Ahead of Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami’s visit to the city a few days ago, the civic body deployed its workers to clean the sand accumulated near median and road edges.
The Corporation officials said that they had deployed 10 to 20 workers on Podanur Road, Nanjundapuram Road, at Athupalam, on Pollachi Road, Avinashi Road near airport, Trichy Road, Oppanakara Street, Mettupalayam Road and a few other places on October 24 and 25.
On roads and streets close to the road that the Corporation cleaned, sand lay accumulated without being cleaned for months together, leaving motorists little space to negotiate potholes and sand.
The officials said that the cleaning operation the conservancy workers carried out were mostly on roads maintained by either the State Highways or National Highways and that the civic body carried out the work only because it did not care for jurisdictions and responsibilities ahead of the Chief Minister's visit.
As for cleaning the sand-filled roads it maintained, the Corporation officials admitted that it would be a very challenging task given the strength of workers it had. There were 2,034 contract workers and 2,300 permanent workers clean the 100 wards.
This was completely inadequate as the civic body required at least another 2,000 workers, if it were to go by the State Government's order stipulating three workers for every 250 hours or a km road.
Unsuccessful
The Corporation’s efforts to automate the sand cleaning work had not proved successful, either, as it last bought the machines in 2010 ahead of the World Classical Tamil Conference.
The Corporation bought four machines at one each a zone – then the Corporation had only four zones; it is now five after it annexed 11 added areas. The machines soon turned faulty and for the past seven or eight years they had remained idle.
The officials argued that even if the Corporation were to use the machines, it would not be of much help because it would still have to deploy workers to clean the sand leftover by the machines and lorry to carry the sand.
Commenting the selective road cleaning, DMK MLA N. Karthik said that had the Corporation engaged more workers on contract the city would not be facing the situation, it faced now.
For the Corporation to engage more workers it should have the financial wherewithal. But that was not case.
Even in the special deployment that the Corporation made ahead of the Chief Minister's visit, it was at the cost of regular work that the workers were doing in their respective wards.
To remedy the situation, the Corporation should take steps to engage workers and to pay them, approach the Central and State governments for more funds.
Senior officials said that they would soon work out a solution to clean the roads on a regular basis.
