Urban News

The Hindu 17.03.2010

Night shelters proposed for destitute senior citizens

Staff Reporter

CHENNAI: The Chennai Corporation plans to start night shelters for elderly persons living on footpaths.

Announcing this at a council meeting on Monday, Mayor M. Subramanian said that last year, the civic agency set up night shelters for streetchildren. The objective of the proposed project is to provide a secure and hygienic shelter for deserted senior citizens. More facilities would be offered at the two geriatrics centres of the civic body, including yoga training.

The civic body would also explore the feasibility of constructing a 200-bed communicable diseases hospital in south Chennai. At its CDH in Tondiarpet, a 20-bed de-addiction centre would be established.

Besides setting up two eye testing centres and two dialysis centres each in north and south Chennai, two diabetic centres would be established in the Corporation's blood testing laboratories.

Blood bank services, now available at the two emergency obstetric centres, would be set up in eight other zones. All 93 health posts would get television sets worth a total of Rs.5 lakh.

The civic body also plans to provide free meals to women after their delivery and until their discharge from the hospitals. Compact beds with nets for the new borns would be provided.

As an attempt to curb rat and mosquito menace, the civic body plans to launch a rat control programme. It would devise a master plan along with the Centre for Research in Medical Entomology, Madurai, using advanced technology of ovitrap apart from procuring 20 more vehicle-mounted fogging machines to curb mosquito breeding.

Ten more mortuary vans and 20 freezer boxes would be procured by Corporation and a dedicated helpline for accessing the free services established, Mr.Subramanian said.

Vaccination for cervical cancer to adolescent girls and iron sucrose injection to pregnant women were some of other healthcare proposals that figured in the Corporation budget.

The Hindu 27.02.2010

Mayor presents deficit budget in Tirupur Corporation

Staff Reporter

— Photo: M. Balaji

Mayor K. Selvaraj (right) presenting the Budget at the Corporation council meeting in Tirupur on Thursday.

Tirupur: Mayor K. Selvaraj presented a deficit budget of Rs. 8.76 crore for 2010-11 fiscal at the Corporation council meeting convened here on Thursday.

The budget had pegged the estimated income at Rs. 127.04 crore with revenue receipts realization targeted at Rs. 57.57 crore and capital receipts (loans and long-term receipts) at Rs. 69.46 crore.

The expenditure was projected at Rs. 135.8 crore with revenue expenditure at Rs. 58.57 crore and the rest planned to be spent under the head of capital expenditure.

To set off the deficit, the Corporation would augment the tax collections during the next financial year.

Mr. Selvaraj said that the administration had aimed at realizing Rs. 13.75 crore as property tax, Rs. 1.31 crore as professional tax and Rs. 2.05 crore as service charges.

P.R. Natarajan of CPI termed the budget document as “cosmetically elegant in its cover without anything constructive inside for infrastructure development and improvement of basic amenities”.

He pointed out that most of the promises in the last budget like ultra sonogram for Corporation-run maternity clinics and improvement of facilities in Corporation-owned schools remained promises even today, making the exercise meaningless.

Walkout

The AIADMK councillors staged a walkout stating that many of the projected financial allocations had already been outlined during the previous two budgets and repeated this time.

S. Sivabalan of MDMK blamed the administration for low professional tax collection.

The reporters and photo journalists staged a walkout during the council meeting after the officials concerned failed to make arrangements to ensure proper coverage of the council meeting.

The reporters returned to the council hall only after they received the copy of the budget document and the agenda paper, the access of which were first denied to the media.