The Times of India      27.08.2014

Residents drive civic makeover in Chetpet & Nungambakkam

  On Wednesday, senior corporation officials are scheduled to meet residents of Khader Nawaz Khan Road to discuss the proposal. "There are plans to recover Open Space Reservation lands and construct road side parks, pavements and a parking lot. We are also considering the concretisation of the stretch. All these proposals would be incorporated with the ideas of the residents," said a corporation official.

 Many in the area say the neighbourhood, off Nungambakkam High Road, has changed from a quiet residential locality to a bustling commercial area over the last 10 years. "There has been a gradual increase in the number of commercial establishments in this area and we are struggling because of the illegal parking," said a resident.

K Chandrasekaran, councillor of ward 110 where Khader Nawaz Khan Road is located, said roadside parks had disappeared. "Many commercial firms are using it as a pathway. Residents had filed several representations about mushrooming illegal shops to civic authorities."

 Meanwhile, the 9.9 crore redevelopment project for Harrington Road, which involves laying concrete roads and granite footpaths, is in progress. The Harrington Road Residents' Welfare Association had conducted a survey and petitioned the civic body to transform it. However, some commuters say the work is not progressing fast. "There was no fault with the old road. But the civic body had simply dug up the road for a section of people, " said P Kumar, a regular commuter.

 On Tuesday, mayor Saidai S Duraisamy and corporation commissioner Vikram Kapur visited the road and told contractors to speed up the work. 

The Hindu      26.08.2014 

HC directive to Madurai Corporation

 The Madras High Court Bench here on Monday directed Madurai Corporation to regularise the services of 12 unskilled labourers, who had been maintaining street lights in the city since 1992, without insisting on educational qualifications required for the posts of wiremen and helpers.

Allowing a joint writ petition filed by them in 2009, Justice R. Mahadevan directed the Corporation Commissioner to pass necessary orders within eight weeks. He recorded the submission of the petitioners’ counsel, B. Saravanan, that his clients were ready to forego old monetary benefits.

The judge pointed out that the petitioners had filed a writ petition in the Principal Seat of the High Court in Chennai in 1997 itself seeking regularisation of their services. That case was disposed of in November 2002 with a direction to the State Government to implement a corporation resolution in favour of the petitioners.

However, the direction was not complied with and hence the petitioners filed a contempt of court application in 2004. The application was disposed of by the court in April 2006 with a direction to the corporation to send a proposal afresh and the government to pass appropriate orders on the proposal within eight weeks.

Nevertheless, the petitioners filed another contempt application in 2007 claiming that the 2006 orders were also not implemented by the authorities concerned. That application was closed after recording the government’s submission that necessary instructions had been issued to the corporation.

Thereafter, the corporation on November 27, 2007 appointed the petitioners as unskilled labourers on temporary basis and not as wiremen and helpers since they had studied only up to Class IV, and hence the present writ petition.

Petitioners filed a writ petition in the Principal Seat of the High Court in Chennai in 1997 itself