What’s there in a name? A lot, if it is about roads within Kochi Corporation limits.

The
town planning committee of the corporation is flooded with requests for
naming roads after one influential personality or the other that it is
mulling over codifying the names of the corporation roads.

Town planning committee sources told
The Hindu
on Saturday that even landmark roads in the city such as Ernakulam
Market Road, Hospital Road, Cannon Shed Road, and YMCA Road have not
been spared from this frenzy over name change to keep personal or
familial legacy aglow.

Then there are instances in
which roads are renamed overnight by interested parties without
bothering to follow municipal rules. One such case of arbitrary
re-christening of roads is now before the High Court and is likely to
come up for hearing next week. C.D. Thomas and Sudheer K. Gopal,
residents of division 11 of the corporation in Thoppumppady, petitioned
the High Court stating that Pallichal Road in their division was renamed
as V.S. Krishnan Bhagavathar Road in the morning of March 3.

The
petitioners alleged that a strong lobby was at work in getting roads
and streets within the corporation limits renamed after taking bribes.

There
is another catch in renaming roads. If a change in road name is not
properly reflected in corporation files, there may come to exist two
roads at least on documents. “The lobby of unscrupulous contractors
takes advantage of this and drains corporation of its resources every
year in the name of maintenance and repair of such non-existent roads,”
Mr. Thomas said.

“In the case of renaming Pallichal
Road, even the division councillor Celine Peter was kept in the dark. It
has now become clear that councillor of the neighbouring division was
behind this action,” Mr. Thomas alleged. An allegation corroborated by
the Town Planning Committee sources and Ms Peter.

Neither
has the division councillor given a letter recommending change of name
nor has the ward committee passed a resolution for renaming. As per
section 379 of the Kerala Municipality Act, a street vested in and
maintained by the Corporation shall be named or renamed after seeking
the opinion of the ward committees or ward sabhas concerned.

“Our
ward committee has neither recommended a name change nor has the
council approved it. I have sent a complaint to the Mayor and the
corporation secretary on the issue. Councillor of the neighbouring
division, R Thyagarajan, is behind renaming of the road,” Ms. Peter
said.

It is pointed out that the council’s decision
to refurbish the corporation boards displaying the road names was
exploited to bring about a name change. The councillor in question may
have prevailed over the contractor entrusted with renovating the boards,
town planning sources said.

R Thyagaragan has
refuted the allegations. “Division councillor’s letter recommending name
change of the road is on record. Corporation secretary is also aware of
the name change and council has approved the name change on December 29
2012,” he said.

The town planning committee and the
corporation secretary had also opposed the arbitrary name change while
directing to reinstate the old name. Despite that the old name was yet
to be restored, the petition said.

Arbitrary change
of road names has been reported from other parts of the corporation.
Kalvathi Road in Mattancherry was found named after a person one fine
morning, town planning sources said.