Urban News

The Hindu 11.11.2009

City road plan to be prepared

S.Ganesan

—Photo:M_Moorthy

AMBITIOUS PLAN: Mayor S.Sujatha, Corporation Commissioner T.T.Balsamy and other officials at a consultative meeting with a technical committee on the implementation of the TN Urban Road Infrastructure Project in Tiruchi on Tuesday.

TIRUCHI: A city road plan, which would form the basis for planning the works to be taken up under the Tamil Nadu Urban Road Infrastructure Project (TURIP), will be prepared within the next two months, according to R.Gayathri, Assistant Vice President, Tamil Nadu Urban Infrastructure Financial Services Limited (TNUIFSL).

Tiruchi is one of the 11 cities and towns identified in the State where the project will be implemented in the first phase. Making a presentation on TURIP at a consultative meeting with the Tiruchi Corporation officials and elected representatives here on Tuesday, Ms.Gayathri said the works would be identified after a scientific study of the requirements. The database of the existing infrastructure would be mapped. A geographical information system (GIS)-based study would be carried out to assess the existing road infrastructure of the city and the upgrade required.

A technical committee, led by Ms.Gayathri, held consultations on the implementation of the project with Mayor S.Sujatha, Corporation Commissioner T.T.Balsamy, and zonal chairpersons and senior engineers of the Corporation. The team included S.Srinivasan, Advisor (Roads), TNUIFSL, Jitendra Kumar, Director, DHV India Ltd., the consultant for the project in Tiruchi, and engineers and experts from various fields.

The project would take into account the growth factor in various parts of the city and have appropriate provisions to the meet the requirements. Roads and other infrastructure to be developed under the scheme would be of international standards to obviate the need for upgrade for the next 20 years.

The objective was to develop sustainable road infrastructure with storm water drains, underground ducts for cables, barrier-free footpaths, medians, lane marking, road signs and street lights. Emphasis would also be on environmental protection and green cover would be provided wherever possible.

“The intention was to avert the need to cut or repair the roads for the next 20 years. This is the first time that such a comprehensive road development project was being taken up in the country,” she observed. The Government was committed to execute the project that is spearheaded by Deputy Chief Minister M.K.Stalin.

The design consultants would also be responsible for monitoring the execution of the project. Contractors would be selected based on their capability and would also be responsible for the maintenance of the infrastructure built by them for five years before handing them over to the civic body.

The works to be identified by the consultants would include fly-overs, road bridges and subways. However, these works would not be taken up initially.

Clarifying certain doubts raised by the Corporation engineers, Ms.Gayathri and Mr.Srinivasan said the works would be executed in coordination with various government agencies so that impediments, if any, were sorted out smoothly.

There would not be any land acquisition at this stage. However, it would be obligatory on the part of the Corporation to remove all encroachments along the roads that were being developed.

Road Users Forum

The consultants would hold extensive consultations with stakeholders and the Corporation would be required to promote Road Users Forum.

The Hindu 11.11.2009

Petition filed against Madurai Corporation

Mohamed Imranullah S.

MADURAI: A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court Bench here alleging that around 265 labourers involved in the Madurai Corporation’s project of laying storm water drainage system in various parts of the city recently were not paid salary arrears of over Rs. 2 crore.

A Division Bench of Justices D. Murugesan and S. Nagamuthu on Tuesday directed the petitioner’s counsel A. Thirumurthy to submit by Thursday, the list of labourers, the number of days they had worked, the daily wage fixed for different category of employees and arrears to be paid to each of them.

The judges said that the Corporation as well as the contractor of the project would be given an opportunity to check the veracity of details provided by the labourers before passing any orders in the PIL petition. They also wanted the details of the payments that had been already made to the workers.

The Mahabubnagar District Palamoori Migrant Labour Union based in Andhra Pradesh had filed the petition.

Its affidavit read that Palamoor is the old name of Mahabubnagar district which was the “second most backward district” in the country. The poor residents of this area migrated to various places in search of work.

“These labourers eke out their livelihood through manual labour within Andhra Pradesh and other States and most of them belong to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities… These labourers are accustomed to work in miserably inhuman conditions,” the president of the Union P. Narayanaswami said.

Around 265 such workers were employed in the storm water drainage work at Karpaga Nagar, B.B. Kulam, Avaniapuram, Arapalayam and Teppakulam areas here. The Union claimed that they were not paid salary arrears for nearly seven months between September 11, 2008 and May 30, 2009.

Stating that the Union had made many representations to the Collector, Corporation Commissioner and Labour Inspector in this regard, its president said: “It is quite unfortunate that the official respondents who are obliged to take immediate action on such a burning issue have turned a deaf ear for reasons best known to them.”

Counsel for the Municipal Corporation told the Bench that the construction work was handed over to a private contractor who was liable to pay the labourers. On the other hand, the contractor’s lawyer contended that he had nothing to do with the matter as the labourers were engaged by a sub-contractor.