Development Works Going On.......
Work on to lay a road in Balaji Nagar, a newly-regularised layout at Singanallur in the city. Development works such as the laying of roads, drainage and provision of streetlights are being carried out in layouts where unapproved house sites were regularised in a special drive till December 31 last year, according to the Coimbatore Corporation. The civic body has listed a number of ongoing works and those that had been completed in the wake of the State Government providing another six months for left out sites to be regularised. Of the 37,567 sites in 761 unapproved layouts, 30,677 had been regularised. It said efforts were on to regularise the other sites. The Corporation was not in a position to regularise 2,570 sites as these in layouts that were found to be surplus Government lands under the Urban Land Ceiling Act. The Corporation collected more than Rs.28 crore by way of regularisation fee, at the rate of Rs.5 a sq.ft, under the scheme introduced by the present State Government. It had collected over Rs.12 crore under previous schemes. The civic body had carried out works for more than Rs.12 crore. These included gravel, tar and cement surface roads, drainage, drinking water supply lines and street lights. The Corporation said it had taken up works for close to Rs.16 crore for 2008-09.
Of these, gravel roads had been laid at Rs.83 lakh, tar roads at Rs.1.25 crore, storm water drains at Rs.1 crore, water supply lines at Rs.55 lakh, bore well water supply lines at nearly Rs.60 lakh and street lights at Rs.64 lakh. With the Corporation facing a demand for drinking water that beyond the capacity of two existing schemes, the civic body supplied bore well water for purposes other than cooking and drinking. Therefore, the newly-regularised layouts would get both drinking water and bore well water lines. Small bridges across canals and the creation of parks on reserved sites were the other works being carried out.
Councillors in the Corporation had called for speedy implementation of development works in these layouts that had been without basic amenities for years. Corporation officials said the civic body too aimed at completing the works soon. It had also been explained to the councillors that laying of roads had been delayed because the Corporation wanted to complete the underground drainage works under a Rs.377-crore project. Otherwise, newly-laid roads would have to be dug for drainage works. This would result in wastage of funds. With the mud roads turning a mess during rain, and the resultant pressure from councillors, the Corporation was laying roads also.
