CHENNAI: The storyline of Rajinikanth's blockbuster Arunachalam has portrayed the struggles of the protagonist, who has been left with an unprecedented gift of '30 crore and 30-day time to spend. The story could be easily connected to the Greater Chennai Corporation, as the dearth of innovative ideas among the officials led to the diversion of smart city funds to older projects that have been already sanctioned funds under various other schemes.
A report from the urban development ministry stated that the Chennai is also lagging behind from other smart cities in terms of spending. The city had only spent '3.82 crore against the sanctioned central fund of '200 crore for the first year of the project. Struggling to find a way to spend the funds to implement new projects, the Chennai Corporation has already started to divert the smart city funds.
In a recent development, the civic body has invited bids to restore the derelict Villivakkam tank and construct a compound wall around the tank. According to the tender document, the compound wall would be constructed at a cost of '5.33 crore and eco-restoration and protection of the tank would be taken up at a cost of '7.93 crore.
The civic body sources said that nearly 200 water bodies would be rejuvenated using smart city funds after completing Villivakkam tank restoration. However, the Chennai Corporation had earlier planned and prepared detailed project reports to restore 32 tanks during the first phase under ‘sustainable water security mission’ announced in Tamil Nadu Assembly.
According to the insiders, the civic body had planned to develop T. Nagar under area-based development model and build multi-level parking facility and pedestrian plaza. “Both the projects have been decided much before the smart city mission. Due to the poor allocations from state government, it has been decided to utilize smart city funds,” the sources said.
When the union government selected Chennai Metropolitan as one of the smart cities to get a boost under ambitious, smart city mission, the cash-starved Greater Chennai Corporation has been allotted with ‘redundant’ funds. “Instead of planning new projects under the smart city, the corporation has been diverting funds to the projects that had been shelved for years,” the insiders said.
According to sources, T. Nagar has been selected under area-based development would have 40 components costing '877.92 crore. Also, eight other infrastructure components have been identified at a cost of '488.31 crore.
