Thiruvananthapuram: It is efficiency at its best: Officials of Vilappil panchayat shifted its office to a temporary building as part of a demolition drive and laid the foundation stone for a new one. And the entire operation took just one day. On February 2, a young woman was run over by a bus at Peyad junction making it the fifth accident death in a row. By that night, the authorities of Vilappil panchayath and Vilavoorkal panchayath, which fall on either side of the Peyad-Kattakkada road, decided to bring down every construction which illegally extended into the roadside.
One of these happened to be Vilappil Panchayath. Fortunately, the permanent building of the Panchayath’s Sisu Mandiram was ready. It started functioning in the new building on February 3, so that the Panchayath could shift its office to this building. “Everything happened in the same week,” says the Panchayath President L Vijayaraj.
The contract to build a new panchayath has been awarded as well. “If we did not start now, the funds allotted through World Bank and Rajiv Gandhi Panchayath Sashakhikaran Abhiyan (RGPSA) would have lapsed in March. Now we are on time. The Panchayath would put in Rs 4 lakhs and we would get Rs 54 lakhs and Rs 5 lakhs each from the World Bank and RGPSA schemes respectively,” says Panchayath Secretary D Thankaraj. The construction is set to start from Wednesday.
