Urban News

The Hindu 02.01.2010

Govt. clears Corporation proposal to rejuvenate tanks in city

Special Correspondent

— File Photo: S. Siva Saravanan

SET FOR IMPROVEMENT: Valankulam is one of the eight tanks in the city that the Corporation will clean up under a Rs.125-crore project.

COIMBATORE: The State Government has cleared the Coimbatore Corporation’s proposal to take custody of eight tanks in the city for their rejuvenation at Rs. 125 crore under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.

The water bodies are Big Tank at Ukkadam, Valankulam Tank, Singanallur Tank, Muthanankulam Tank, Krishnampathy Tank, Narasampathy Tank, Selvampathy Tank and Selvachinthamani Tank.

An order issued last month ends a tug-of-war between the Corporation and the Public Works Department over the custody of the tanks. The order authorised the Corporation to carry out the rejuvenation process such as de-silting and strengthening of bunds.

According to the civic body, the PWD had suggested earlier that the Corporation could hand over the funds to it to carry out the works.

The order, however, gave the Corporation sanction for only one-time custody of the tanks.

The custody period would end when the rejuvenation was completed. The tanks would once again be taken control of by the PWD – the custodian of all water bodies in the State.

Meeting

Welcoming the order, Mayor R. Venkatachalam said on Friday that first it would be recorded in the Council, possibly at an urgent meeting to discuss key schemes.

“We will then have a meeting with the officials of the PWD on how to set about the task of rejuvenation the tanks. We have to draw up a list of these in order of priority,” he said.

The Corporation planned to approach the Central Lake Development Authority for guidance on cleaning and maintaining the tanks.

Such a guidance would be necessary as the Corporation wanted to beautify the tank area and create parks, playgrounds and lay walkers’ tracks. Another area of focus was preventing pollution of the tanks.

“The discharge of sewage will stop when the entire city has underground drainage. A scheme for this is being implemented,” the Mayor said.

The Corporation would also look into the need for linking the tanks with canals so that surplus water in one flowed to another.

“The aim is to enable all the tanks to hold water to its capacity,” he said.

After the rejuvenation process was completed, the Corporation would maintain the parks and walkers’ track, lights and other facilities.

The release of water and the maintenance of the water-holding areas of the tanks would be done by the PWD, Mr. Venkatachalam said.

The Hindu 31.12.2009

Surampatty Municipality suffers without garbage disposal yard

Staff Reporter

ERODE: Surampatty Municipality, a grade three civic body, has been dumping garbage all around - on road sides, vacant plots and almost at any place that is far from human habitation.

The reason: it doesn’t have a proper garbage disposal yard and mechanism in place.

The two metric tonnes of biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste it collects is just collected and dumped.

For the purpose of dumping waste, without proper treatment, it employs 50 containers, two tractors and as many lorries and five tricycles.

And, such dumping has landed the civic body, which has a population of about 55,000, in trouble.

Residents of the area where it dumps garbage complain of pollution.

Ward 1 Councillor of neighbouring Kasipalayam Municipality P. Krishnaveni says the garbage the Surampatty civic body dumps in Kasipalayam village affects about 2,500 families.

The smoke from the burning garbage troubles the students of the nearby government middle school, some of who have fainted and felt nausea, she says.

She regrets that the problem has been going on for the past 15 years and the dumped garbage resembles a hillock in the Bharathipuram area. Surampatty officials say the reason the civic body has been dumping all over is because they don’t have a land to dispose of the garbage in a safe and proper manner.

“No land is available within the Municipality limits to set up a garbage disposal yard. And, the lands the Municipality identified for the purpose have not been put to use because of opposition from the public of the area,” says Executive Officer G. Maryammal.

The civic body first identified a land in Muthampalayam and then in Mettunasuvanpalayam, near Bhavani. After failing in the attempts, the civic body took up the issue with the District Collector and Municipal Administration Department.

Letter

Municipality Chairman V.S. Loganathan says the civic body wrote to the Commissioner of Municipal Administration asking for help to safely dispose of the garbage and the latter wrote to the Commissioner of Erode Corporation to accommodate Surampatty’s garbage.

The CMA wrote a letter to the Corporation in February this year and followed it up with another in September following a court order but the Corporation has not helped, he says.

“It (Erode Corporation) has not come forward to help Surampatty Municipality, which will soon become a part of the former,” he says and accuses it of violating orders.

Erode Corporation on its part says when it is finding it difficult to manage its own garbage it will only be a burden to take waste from Surampatty.

Left with no option, Surampatty Municipality officials say they have again written to CMA for further orders and have also sought the help of District Collector.