Chennai: With just four months remaining for the October civic polls, the local administration department is all set to speed up pending civic projects worth Rs 2,000 crore across the state focusing more on Chennai, Coimbatore, Trichy and Madurai districts.
The files relating to smart city projects that were kept on hold for the past three months in tier one cities of Tamil Nadu will now receive attention. Most of these projects have to be completed by August, ahead of monsoon, a highly-placed official said.
Similarly, the state is all set to speed up the new schemes proposed by the rural development ministry where on the sanitation front clean village campaign and integrated sanitary complexes for women will now gain momentum in rural
pockets.
During 2015 - 2016, an all time high of 15.23 lakh individual households
were provided with toilets and an estimated Rs 1,827 crore was spent. This project, which won accolades and an award from the
Centre, will now be restarted in a big way and for 2017. About Rs 18,000 crore had been allocated and works will commence next month, a senior official said. Under municipal administration, Rs 12,194.21 crores have been sanctioned by the finance department and 50 per cent of the funds will be diverted for augmenting drinking water supply. The project will also connect suburbs of Chennai, the official added.
With Chief Minister Jayalalithaa continuing in power, new proposals that were signed during last year's Global investors Meet will also take life. As on date, 75 of the 217 infrastructure projects, including the modern inter and intra city bus terminals signed during GIM are in implementation stage.
Work on the remaining projects will commence shortly. Only 25 per cent of the proposals signed during GIM have seen execution, an Industries department official told DC.
With a lot of expectations on AIADMK rule, particularly in the infrastructure sector, the government should now speed up infra projects and also ensure speed in completing Metro Rail in Chennai, said social activist R. Govindaraj of Exnora International.
