The Deccan Chronicle 09.12.2010
Prominent southern suburbs suffer tooDec. 8: The state government boasts of bringing in more funds to empower local bodies to make Greater Chennai a better place to live in but, in reality, the public suffer without even basic amenities.
Three prominent suburbs, Alandur, Pallavaram and Tambaram, were promised better waste management facility, underground drainage connection and undisrupted power supply a few years ago. All these promises and the resolutions passed in the local body council meetings remain on paper.
“There is no proper compost yard for the southern suburbs and the local bodies have been shamelessly dumping waste either on marshland or a water body,” Mr D. Vijayakumar, a civic activist based in Tambaram, alleged.
Whenever there is a sewer block or the septic tank is full, the Tambaram municipal staff do not attend to the problem. If the promised underground drainage network is completed on time, there is no need for the public to worry about septic tanks, he added.
According to Pallavaram municipal sources, underground drainage connection and modern integrated compost centre at Venkatamangalam were proposed four years back, but both projects are yet to cross the half-way mark. Though the underground drainage work is progressing at snail’s pace, the compost waste centre project, estimated to cost `45 crore, has come to a halt due to contractual problems, sources added.
In Alandur, the recently-installed pumping station periodically fails. Much to the dismay of the public, the state electricity department has shot down the underground electric cable proposal for Alandur citing huge expenditure and lack of funds.
When contacted, Alandur municipal chairman Durai Velu said the local body has sought the expertise of Metro Water to operate the pumping station and sewer faults will be rectified soon. The locality will get new underground electric cables once the city limits expand, he added.
Tambaram municipal commissioner N.S. Prema assured that the abandoned compost yard project would be re-started within a fortnight.
