New roads to be sanctioned on the spot

The Madurai Corporation has announced that new roads will be sanctioned on the spot and laid immediately without any procedural delay.

The new system will come into effect immediately in all the 100 wards of the city and the councillors can approach the authorities if they want road works to be carried out in their wards.

This was announced by the Corporation Commissioner R. Nanthagopal at the Council meeting held here on Friday after a councillor drew his attention to several proposals for new roads waiting for official sanction for long.

“We have tried out spot sanction of roads in wards 5, 24 and 54. I will visit every ward, inspect the quality of roads along with the City Engineer and Executive Engineer. If the road condition is bad, we will sanction the work on the spot and funds will be given,” he said.

The Commissioner was responding to a question raised by Councillor P.Muthu Meena (Ward 81) who complained that despite repeated pleas for laying of roads, the Corporation was taking a lot of time to sanction the works.

She said the files prepared to get official concurrence had to go from one section to the other, and by the time everything was cleared the road condition turned worse.

Agreeing with the council member’s grievance, Mr.Nanthagopal said delay in sanctioning road works was due to the procedures involved in preparing of estimates, issuing approval by the department concerned and sanctioning of funds.

Monthly visit

The Commissioner also informed the Council that Mayor V.V.Rajan Chellappa, himself and a team of officials would visit all the wards every month to redress public grievances in the presence of the ward councillors concerned.