The Coimbatore Corporation would first take up the cleaning and upkeep of the Narasampathy, Selvampathy and Selva Chinthamani tanks under the Tamil Nadu Sustainable Urban Development Programme, said the civic body in a resolution passed at the Wednesday’s ordinary Council meeting.
Even as it awaited the Central Government and State Government’s assistance to clean the three tanks and Krishnampathy, Kumarasamy, Periyakulam, Valangulam and Singanallur tanks at Rs. 232 crore, it had decided to take up the three tanks on a priority basis at Rs. 27.45 crore, with 60 per cent of the amount coming as loan, 30 per cent as subsidy and 10 per cent as its contribution.
The Corporation proposed to desilt the tanks to increase their storage, strengthen their bunds, lay walkers’ path and plant flowering plants.
The Corporation also decided to handover three acre in Ukkadam sewage farm to the TNAU for research and shift the Lorry Pettai to Vellalore to ease traffic congestion in Ukkadam.
The Corporation officials came in for criticism from the councillors for not cleaning the drains. Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s A. Nandhakumar and others complained that if the civic body did not clean drains in the next few days, the city would come under a sheet of water as the drains were choked and had lost their capacity to convey water.
AIADMK’s S. Balan wanted the civic body to initiate action against builders of commercial establishments that were not in conformity with the approved plan. He also raised the issue of the civic body pasting a ‘caution’ notice on a commercial establishment that housed a popular textile showroom on Cross Cut Road.
Councillors from Kurichi and Kuniamuthur complained of poor water supply and wanted steps to improve the supply from once in 10 days to once in five days. Corporation engineers said that things would improve in the next couple of months once the pipeline laying work from the new storage reservoir in Ganapathy to Singanallur was complete. In implementing new works and allocating money for the same, the councillors sought parity. Town Planning Committee chairperson K.N. Senthilkumar said that the officials should allocate money for wards from added areas because they lacked in infrastructure compared to those in the core city area.
Ward 68 Councillor K. Sakthivel wanted a library that remained closed for two years to be opened.
A few councillors also wanted road repair works to be completed at the earliest. At places where the underground drainage work was completed, the ground had not been levelled, they complained.
To demands for new water connection, the Mayor in-charge S. Leelavathi Unni said that the Corporation would soon take a decision. The new connections could be granted as early as August first week as the storage reservoirs had recorded good rainfall.
Earlier, the DMK councillors staged a protest against the move to use the land allocated for the Semmozhi Poonga for building stadium and swimming pool.
