Copyright thehindu
A marathon council meeting was conducted by Sivakasi Corporation on Thursday after councillors insisted to read out every single subject in the agenda containing 202 subjects. The meeting, chaired by Mayor, I. Sangeetha, in the presence of Corporation Commissioner, Saravanan and Deputy Mayor, Vignesh Priya, that started around 11.30 a.m. went on till 3.30 p.m. The Mayor agreed for reading out every subject as the last council meeting was wound up without discussing any of the 173 subjects after councillors objected to stack up numerous subjects in the council. Councillor, R. Sethuraman, of ward 7 complained about rampant corruption in fixing property tax. “No tax can be fixed for any property without paying ₹50,000 bribe,” he said. When the Commissioner interrupted him, Sethuraman said that he had raised this issue with the Commissioner in person in the past, but things have not changed. He complained that the councillors would not be able to meet the people seeking votes during the ensuing Assembly election, if the corrupt officers do not change their behaviour. A woman councillor complained that a clerk was collecting ₹15,000 bribe to renew the license of shops in Anna Vegetable market. When she named the clerk, the Commissioner assured to enquire into the allegation. Ward 1 councillor, A. Selvam, complained that the Corporation authorities were ignoring the basic amenities like storm water drainage and roads in his ward. “When I met the Chief Minister, M.K. Stalin, in Chennai, he was keen to know about the ward issues. When we have such a Chief Minister, should we not make the most and redress the issues of basic facilities,” he said. He complained that stagnanting sewage in Muthumari Nagar was posing health hazard to the children. Several councillors complained about lack of cleanliness in the city due to deployment of less number of cleanliness workers. The contractor was not deploying all the 272 cleanliness workers every day. This led to the heaps of garbage lying on the roads after Deepavali, some of them complained.
