The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Key projects elude Perambur

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 22, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Key projects elude Perambur

Karthik Subramanian

Peak-hour traffic and inundation during rain remain major concerns Parks and roads have improved but

CHENNAI: Perambur is a predominantly labour class-dominated area with a large chunk of its residents living in over 4,300 slum board tenements spread across the constituency.

Residents feel the general maintenance in the constituency has improved in the last five years.

The 1.3-kilometer-long cement road in Sathyamoorthy Nagar completed last year is the longest concrete stretch in the city. The Chennai Corporation has renovated several parks in the region though not all of them have been opened.

Pending flyovers

Despite the improvement to roads and parks, projects with long-term vision are absent. The incomplete Perambur flyover and the still-pending Vyasarpadi-Erukkencherry rail over-bridge top the list. Construction work on the Perambur flyover, planned by the previous DMK-led council in Chennai Corporation, was stalled after the AIADMK Government came to power. It was the only flyover for North Chennai out of the 10 flyovers planned during the mayorship of DMK deputy general secretary M.K. Stalin.

Report never tabled

Though the Justice Arumugam Committee had conducted a study on the alleged irregularities in the Perambur flyover project and had submitted a report to the State Government in 2004, the report was never tabled in the Assembly.

The Government has also not made it clear whether the flyover would be completed at all. Another project that has not materialised despite continuous promises is the Vyasarpadi-Erukkencherry railway over-bridge.

Successive governments have spoken about the modernisation of the Perambur abattoir, the main cattle slaughterhouse in the city, but the project has never taken off.

Residents' welfare associations and animal welfare activists have protested unhealthy conditions in the slaughterhouse for nearly a decade now. The abattoir modernisation project has been delayed because of various reasons ranging from withdrawal of a Central Government grant to a legal case involving one of the bidders for the project.

The Chennai Corporation had recently decided to go ahead with modernisation plans with its own design based on the abattoir maintained in Mumbai.

S.K. Mahendran, who is seeking re-election from Perambur, has said the residents would vote for the DMK-led alliance as they had realised that there was no other way the pending projects would be completed.

The Communist candidate said he would work for the construction of a peripheral hospital.

Maintaining water supply

D. Manimaran (MDMK) said his top priority for the constituency would be maintaining the increased water supply in the region.

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