Chennai: It has been a productive year for the Chennai Corporation as a number of citizen-friendly projects such as saving the water-bodies and fighting encroachments were kick-started this year.
The progress of the smart city project too has been appreciated by the citizens. However, yet another year went by without Civic polls.
Plastic ban
The Civic body has come up with a solution to save the environment, that is to ban plastic. The Chennai Corporation has announced a ban of 14-single-use type of plastic in the State.
On 29 December, Corporation Commissioner D Karthikeyan met with officers from all corporation departments regarding implementation of the plastic ban in the city.
Resident’s have been asked to surrender all banned plastic items at their respective Corporation Ward Offices. This includes plastic cups, sheets, straws and bags.
Walk with Commissioner
Karthikeyan along with his deputies walked the Marina stretch morning and inspected the progress of the beach clean-up works few days ago. The officials inspected the toilets and the fish stalls.
Apart from this, the civic body has identified a two-acre land belonging to Tamilnadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB) to set up a new fish market in the city.
The fish market is proposed to be built at a cost of Rs 5 crore and is expected to accommodate 300 shops. The new market would have all facilities including car parking.
Batting for residents
In April, Corporation officials razed encroachments including a shop and a temple on Marina Loop Road in Pattinampakkkam.
The officials claimed demolishing the encroachments was necessary as the encroachers had got out of hand and removing it was inevitable.
Apart from this, encroachers in Taramani, Kottivakkam and Velacheri were demolished after residents petitioned.
Smart city project
The smart city project in the city made ample progress this year. As per reports, 95 per cent of the Childrenās Traffic Park in Napier Bridge and a Sensory Park at Santhome is soon expected to be opened for public.
Work is underway to lay the missing links for Stormwater drains in Thyagaraya Nagar at an estimated Rs 9.37 crore. This is to ensure a flooding free city.
Some of the finished projects include 28 smart classrooms at a cost of Rs 1.75 crore and converted 1,772 sodium vapour lamps to energy-saving LED lights at a cost of Rs 3.44 crore. It is said the Corporation has over 33 developmental projects including command and control centre on the charts.
Hassle-free birth certificates
From 1 January 2019, people need not travel all the way to their respective Health Inspectors to include names in birth certificates as they can do it online.
It will be implemented from 1 January in its website as well as āNamma Chennaiā app wherein corrections can be made online for government certificates including birth certificates.
Citizens can upload all the documents from their homes and the new certificates will issued online in a short span of time.
No civic polls
Yet another year passed where the city functioned without Councillors. The term of the last Council and, concurrently, that of the Mayor, expired in October 2016. Ever since, the city has been administered by the Commissioner, in the capacity of a Special Officer.
Most people do not seemed to be worried that in October, the city completed two years of with out civic polls. There have not been any official statement about when the polls would be held again.
Saving waterbodies
In what was the need of the hour, the Civic body took up an initiative to revive the waterbodies.
Across the city, there are about 206 water bodies and the Chennai Corporation invited the local communities and corporates to adopt and take ownership of these water bodies for specific time period.
Few water bodies underwent deep cleaning and development in many parts of the city.