AIADMK Plans Stage Demonstration
The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) will stage a demonstration against the Coimbatore Corporation here on Saturday, targeting the civic body on the alleged irregularities in inviting tenders and awarding contracts in the Rs.89-crore project to establish two sewage treatment plants. AIADMK says it has decided to take its struggle to demand fresh tenders to the people, as the resolution clearing the tenders has been approved in the Corporation CouncilThe plants project is a component of the Rs. 377-crore underground drainage scheme. The AIADMK says it has decided to take its struggle to demand fresh tenders to the people, as the resolution clearing the tenders has been approved in the Corporation Council. Urban district secretary of the party and former Minister S.M. Velusamy said in a statement here on Thursday that the demonstration by the party was to assail the Corporation on introducing a fee for door-to-door collection of garbage, the increase in drinking water charges and the move to raise Property Tax.
The party has also faulted the Corporation for not being able to implement so far the Pilloor Phase-II drinking water scheme. Along with the drainage scheme, the Rs.113-crore water scheme had been included in the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. Sources in the AIADMK in the Corporation Council said on Thursday that the party would try all options that would force the Corporation to invite fresh bids for the treatment plants project.
The sources contended that the recommendation for re-tender by the audit report on the project was an indictment of the Corporation. Though the Corporation authorities argued that the report had only mentioned re-tender and inquiry as options, it left plenty of the hints that the stigma of corruption in the project would remain to cast aspersions on the approach to implementing schemes.
They said that any struggle inside the Council would not be successful as the Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam would use their combined majority to pass resolutions. This was how the garbage fee and the increase in water charges managed to get the approval of the majority in the Council, despite the opposition from the AIADMK, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India and the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK).
MDMK State Executive Committee member and former councillor M. Krishnaswamy has invoked the provisions of the Right to Information Act to demand from the Corporation the details of the treatment plant project. In a recent application to the Corporation, Mr. Krishnaswamy sought details of the underground drainage scheme, such as the estimates, type of works and technology.
Details regarding the invitation of bids and the procedure followed were also sought. Mr. Krishnaswamy said he had also sought information on the companies that took part in the bids. The former councillor also wanted to know why the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board was not chosen to implement the scheme. He also asked the Corporation what kind of works on the drainage scheme were on now, after its launch in November 2007 by Local Administration Minister M.K. Stalin.
